Compare the passage of legislation in two political systems you have studied. (12)

One passage of legislation that both the UK and the US have is through their ability to pass legislation. In the UK, for a bill to be passed to become a law it first has too bought into parliament and proposed to the house of commons so their can be a first and second reading of the bill. The bill then goes through the committee and report stage before the bill goes back into parliament for its final third reading. The bill is then passed onto the house of lords which follows the same first and second reading, the committee and report stage and then the final third reading. The bill is then submitted for the consideration of amendments and is then sent to royal assent to be read and approved before finally becoming a bill. An example of a bill that has been passed as law through the British parliament is the human rights act of 1998. However this makes it difficult for the legislative to pass bills if the prime minister has the majority of seats in the commons. For a bill to come law the bill is assigned a legislative number before it gets sent to a committee by a speaker of house. The committee then talks about what they like and don’t like about the proposed bill, they then suggest any changes before they choose whether to accept or reject any changes that are made. The bill is then sent to congress where the house and senate debate the bill and then propose amendments, both the house and senate then vote ‘yay’ or ‘nay’. Then finally for the bill to become a law it gets sent to the president approves or passes the bill before signing to approve the bill as a law. An example of this is when congress did the 13^th amendment to abolish the slave trade and the use of slaves. This is a good ability to pass law because it is more difficult for the president to get their laws passed and they can be blocked such as the budget. However the president can issue executive orders which allows them to get around consulting other political representatives when it comes to making laws.

Another passage of legislation that both the UK and US is through how the parliament and congress can scrutinise the government to influence the government. The UK government can get scrutiny through Prime minister’s question time which is held every Wednesday at noon for 30 minutes. PMQ is used for other MPs to ask the PM and government to justify any recent actions or behaviours. PMQ is effective as it can force change as MPs can ask anything, for example Theresa May suffered so much scrutiny that she was forced to drop the 55p universal credits phone lie charge. Scrutiny can also be served shadow cabinets which are the government opposing party so currently in the UK the labour party where the shadow leader is Kier Starmer, which follows the work done by the government departments. Shadow cabinets are good as they show absence of this form of close scrutiny. The US can be scrutinized through congressional oversight, where they prevent waste, fraud, abuse and protecting rights and civil liberties. They are useful because they are ‘implied’ powers by a ‘necessary and proper’ clause of the constitution. This helps to form key elements of the system of checks and balances of power among the three branches of government. This is done through means of consulting with or getting reports directly from the president. This is effective scrutiny of executive scrutiny by their legislatives often is improved with the use of media platform because of their own, however the UK are not that public in the scrutiny.

Finally both the UK and US have roles and influences of committees. The UK has select committees, which are also a form of scrutiny. Select committee’s check up on the work that is done by the government. They bring in experts, collect evidence and get public opinions on different issues and situations before presenting it to the different government departments. Select committees are effective because the government take up about 35%-40% of recommendations that are made by select committees. However select committees are mostly made up from MPs which makes them less effective, and the government doesn’t have to take their advice. The US has committee hearings such as the Clinton Benghazi, which are always advertised on tv. The congressional committees are legislative sub-organizations. All together there are 250 sub-congressional and congressional committees for all the different functions. the committees are made up of congress members who can join the 3 types of committees, standing, select or special and joint. They have many duties including gathering information, identifying policy problems, and proposing solutions. Overall it can be argued that the US legislative branch is effective in this area because of the coverage which could be argued to heighten democracy as it really does visibly hold the government to account.