Reading Amendments

To follow the debate on the European Union (Notice of Withdrawal) Bill (or ANY bill) in the House of Lords, you need to equip yourself with the version of the bill that the Lords will be using.

A quick word of caution here - a Bill goes through a number of printings; after any amendments have been made - and when it comes up to the Lords from the Commons. Helpfully, on the website - the 'latest bill' is always highlighted.

Amendments, if passed, would amend the text of that version of the bill. So you need to look at the wording of the amendment, to see what it would do.

Amendments tabled in the House of Lords [Note for my American readers - tabled in the UK Parliament is the OPPOSITE of 'tabling' in Congress. Tabling in the USA is the term used for killing off a bill or an amendment (by throwing it under the table). In the UK tabling means putting on the table. So in the UK "I am tabling an amendment means - "I am putting an amendment down for discussion"] are numbered then printed. You can access the amendments here. These amendment papers are the second (set) of documents needed.

 Some amendments would ADD words to a bill - as for example Lord Lea of Crondall's Amendment to Clause 1 -

Clause 1
LORD LEA OF CRONDALL
Page 1, line 3, at end insert “while retaining membership of the European Economic Area (EEA)” 

On the pdf version of the bill, you'll see the page number at the top.

Page 1, as you can see is numbered, but is not the first page of the whole document.

Not every line is numbered, in fact only lines 5, 10, 15 etc have the number printed on them. So a bit of basic maths is needed to find line 3. (Go to line 5 - go up two lines - and you have line 3)

so if Lord Lea's amendment was passed the bill would read

(1) The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU while retaining membership of the European Economic Area (EEA)

 

A more complex amendment - which still is a simple "insert" is

LORD KERSLAKE 
Page 1, line 3, at end insert—
“( ) No agreement with the European Union consequent on the use of the power under subsection (1) may be ratified unless a full report has been produced by Her Majesty's Government on the implications of that agreement for—
(a) the future of the United Kingdom, and
(b) the economic, social and political relations of the United Kingdom with the Republic of Ireland;
and each House of Parliament has had an opportunity to consider this report.”

The effect of this amendment passing (as well as adding these words) would require that a specific report MUST be produced by the Government before any negotiated deal could be ratified.

A whole new clause could be added - (if the bill becomes an act it would be known as a 'section'), as with this amendment

After Clause 1
BARONESS HAYTER OF KENTISH TOWN LORD LENNIE
LORD HANNAY OF CHISWICK
Insert the following new Clause—
“Parliamentary approval for agreements with the European Union
(1) No Minister of the Crown may conclude an agreement with any institution of the European Union regarding the withdrawal of the United Kingdom under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union until—
(a) the Government has laid a copy of the final draft of the agreement before each House of Parliament, and
(b) each House of Parliament has passed a resolution approving the final draft of the agreement.
(2) The requirements under paragraphs (a) and (b) must also be met where a Minister of the Crown proposes to conclude any separate agreement with the European Union pertaining to the future political and economic relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

(3) In the case of a proposed agreement setting out the arrangements for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the resolution under subsection (1) must have been passed by each House of Parliament before the proposed terms are agreed with the Commission, with a view to their approval by the European Parliament.”

All of the current amendments seek to add to the provisions in the bill. (It is such a short bill, that removing words or clauses - at this stage is near impossible. But should any of amendments be passed, we would expect amendments at later stages, particularly at "Ping-pong" stage - to take words or clauses out.)

"Leave out" is the key phrase to remove words in a clause, or the clause itself - as in

0. Page 2, line 10, leave out subsection (1)
   
   
   
   Page 2, line 10, leave out “, or the Director (or his deputy),”
   
   
   

   Page 2, leave out line 10
   

"Leave out..... and insert" is the wording to remove and replace by new wording.

Page 1, line 10, leave out “may” and insert “shall” 

The effect of that would be to turn a power to do something into a duty!

To know more - go to the very useful guide to amendment style - which is available at -
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/publications-records/House-of-Lords-Publications/Rules-guides-for-business/Guidance-members-HL/Guide-to-HL-Amendment-Style.pdf

***  All these points relate to amending the Act itself. That will start at the Committee Stage. But first, 2nd Reading must be held. That will be on the MOTION "that the bill be now read a second time." Such a motion can be amended or rejected. (Both are very rare).

Blank Cheques

For me, the most important event this week at Westminster will be the Second Reading Debate of the Education and Adoption Bill in the House of Commons. It is certainly not the biggest story that will dominate the news over the coming week - Greece is likely to dominate the headlines - and who knows what else may come along. So why am I so concerned about this bill?

I am a strong believer in parliamentary accountability (as an internationalist who believes in the central importance that legislatures should play in democracies - accountability by any legislature is important). Legislatures should write the laws (OK, pass them - even if the texts are proposed elsewhere - for example the Executive). The Executive's power should be approved and its use held to account by Parliament.

This bill grants the Secretary of State for Education powers that would have Dicey revolving in his grave - not at the speed of old LPs or singles (very dated reference for those of us of a certain age), but of CDs. She (currently the post is held by Nicky Morgan [NO relation]) is given extensive powers over a new "class" of schools; their existing governors and teaching staff; and local authorities. That might be justified - but she gets to write the criteria for "entry" into this class.

Currently the Secretary of State's powers are limited to "failing" schools - ones that have weaknesses identified by an Ofsted inspection. Now these powers are extended (in two ways - both to (1) schools and to (2) the extent of the orders she can issue and duties placed on the recipients of her orders).

It is not right that the Executive be given the power to make up its own definitions. It is Parliament's responsibility.

Clause 1 (A Clause in a Bill becomes a Section in a passed Act) of the Education and Adoption Bill says

.....

(3)After section 60A [Education and Inspections Act 2006] insert—

“60AB Coasting schools

(1) A maintained school is by virtue of this section eligible for intervention if the
governing body of the school—

(a)have been notified that the Secretary of State considers the school to be
coasting, and

(b) have not subsequently been notified that the Secretary of State no
longer considers the school to be coasting.

(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations define what “coasting”
means in relation to a school for the purposes of subsection (1).””

 

Such regulations must be approved under the Affirmative resolution procedure - but that means little oversight in practice.

 

The Bill will get its Second Reading tomorrow evening, and will move to the committee stage in the House of Commons. Government Ministers and whips will have as their key objective NOT to accept any amendment other than ones the Government wants (so amending Clause 1(3) is almost impossible). Only the House of Lords stands a chance of defeating the Government on this - and it is rightly unwilling to do this except on rare occasions. Some lively criticism in the Commons Second Reading debate might embolden them.

I have other concerns about this bill - and its effect on centralisation of powers.

 

Sadly, the issue may just be left. The government may further extend its powers - with parents; local representatives and the public unable to act when these powers are used.

 

It isn't just the buildings that are crumbling at Westminster.

The Bill can be found here; Explanatory Notes (prepared by the Government) here and the House of Commons Library Briefing Paper here.

Second Reading

Further information and a video of a second reading can be found here.

Second Reading

The following video shows the Second Reading in the House of Lords, of the Bribery Bill. It is worth analaysing both the debate - and the minister's speech.

The purpose of Second Readings is to debate the PRINCIPLES of the Bill. Lord Bach, as the Government Minister responsible for the Bill in the Lords, explains the PURPOSE of the Bill and its STRUCTURE. The history behind the Bill is outlined. Lord Bach summarises the content, and explains the main provisions.

Second Reading

One way of getting a better understanding of the legislative process is to analyse the speeches during the different stages of a bill's progress.

On September 6th the House of Commons gave a Second Reading to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.  You can follow the debate in Hansard here - the column numbers appear in the text.

The Deputy Prime Minister begins - "I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time".

As is the usual practice in the 2nd Reading speech for the Minister - he begins by setting out the problems that the Bill is a response to.

He says (col 35) "There are two major issues that we have to face. The first [1] is the big difference between the sizes of many parliamentary constituencies, which has the effect of making some people's votes count more than others, depending on where they live. The second [2] is the widespread concern about first past the post as the means by which MPs are elected. " He expands upon these two major problems by outlining subsidiary issues -
(1) the degree of variance in sizes of constitutencies
(2) the fact that the information used in deciding the makeup of constituencies is long out of date, even before the boundary revisions come into force
(3) there are too mant constituencies
(4) the process by which boundaries are drawn is cumbersome. (Cols 36-37) 
(5) the First Past the Post electoral system no longer enjoys the confidence of many voters and this is undermining the legitimacy of elections (Col 40)

The speech deals with how the proposed legislation addresses these problems.
[1] is dealt with in col 37 - "The Bill seeks to address each of these problems....."
[2] is dealt with from col 40 "I now turn to the referendum on the alternative vote...."

Towards the end of the speech he gives a brief description of the substantive clauses (Col 43) "I would now like to outline briefly the effect of the substantive clauses. I know that many Members want to speak in the debate so I do not intend to describe the Bill clause by clause; there will be plenty of opportunity for that in Committee. For the moment I hope it will suffice to say that there are three main parts to the Bill: provisions for a referendum to be held, in clauses 1 to 5 and schedules 1 to 5; provisions for implementation of the alternative vote system in the event of a yes vote in the referendum, in clause 7 and schedule 6; and provisions to reform the setting of parliamentary boundaries, in clauses 8 to 11.

This basic three part structure can be seen in other 2nd Reading speeches by the person who is responsible for the Bill.

The Opposition spokesperson then moves an amendment. Note how the amendment process works

[1] The original motion is "That the Bill be now read a Second time"

[2] The amendment reads "to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and add:


"this House, whilst affirming its belief that there should be a referendum on moving to the Alternative Vote system for elections to the House of Commons, declines to give a Second Reading to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill because it combines that objective with entirely unrelated provisions designed to gerrymander constituencies by imposing a top-down, hasty and undemocratic review of boundaries, the effect of which would be to exclude millions of eligible but unregistered voters from the calculation of the electoral average and to deprive local communities of their long-established right to trigger open and transparent public inquiries into the recommendations of a Boundary Commission, thereby destroying a bi-partisan system of drawing boundaries which has been the envy of countries across the world; and is strongly of the opinion that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by a full process of pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill."

If successful (and Governments VERY rarely lose on 2nd reading) the new motion would be

[3] "This House, whilst affirming its belief that there should be a referendum on moving to the Alternative Vote system for elections to the House of Commons, declines to give a Second Reading to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill because it combines that objective with entirely unrelated provisions designed to gerrymander constituencies by imposing a top-down, hasty and undemocratic review of boundaries, the effect of which would be to exclude millions of eligible but unregistered voters from the calculation of the electoral average and to deprive local communities of their long-established right to trigger open and transparent public inquiries into the recommendations of a Boundary Commission, thereby destroying a bi-partisan system of drawing boundaries which has been the envy of countries across the world; and is strongly of the opinion that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by a full process of pre-legislative scrutiny of a draft Bill"

The debate continued - some speeches are reasoned statements of why the amendment is supported, or why the original motion hasm the support of the person speaking. Some speeches and interventions highlight specific concerns that attention is drawn to.

At the 'moment of interruption' the question was put "That the amendment be made". This was lost by 347-254 votes. Then the unamended motion "that the Bill be now read a Second time" was put. This was carried by 328 to 269 votes. The change in the voting numbers reflects that fact that some members of the Government parties either voted against the motion or abstained. There were further votes on the Programme Motion (which limits the time for further stages) and the Money Resolution.