Tag: Brown Commission
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Mark K Heatley: The Disadvantages of Local Legislation
The term Private Acts of Parliament (PA) is widely used to include local Acts, that benefit organizations such as local authorities or authorize major infrastructure projects and are often of limited geographical extent, or personal Acts that benefit individuals. This post considers the reasons for the decline in the enaction of Local Acts of Parliament…
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Mike Gordon: Creating an Integrity and Ethics Commission in the UK: The Case for Reform and Challenges for Implementation
In an era of intense and continuing controversy over the rules of political responsibility, the question of how to reform the current framework of constitutional standards applicable to politicians requires serious consideration. In addition to the regularity with which allegations about ministerial irresponsibility are being raised and sometimes (eventually) addressed, there are clearly structural challenges…
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Gordon Guthrie: Brown vs Dewar – The Labour Commission on the UK’s Future
With the publication of Labour’s Commission on the UK’s Future it is worth contrasting the approach that Gordon Brown and his colleagues have taken with the very successful devolutionary legacy of Donald Dewar. The Scottish Parliament is one of the most powerful subnational parliaments in the world. But the Scottish state hardly changed in 1999…
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Robert Greally: The Brown Report: Political Legitimacy and the Power of the Assembly
The Brown Commission has recommended replacing the House of Lords with an elected Assembly of the Nations and Regions of the UK. In recent posts, the Commission’s proposals for legally empowering the Assembly to scrutinise bills and to protect the constitution have come under criticism on several grounds. First, there are concerns that the Assembly would be unable…
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Tarun Khaitan: An Elected Second Chamber? Some Thoughts on the Brown Report
One of the key recommendations of the Brown Commission is to replace the House of Lords with an elected second chamber called the Assembly of the Nations and Regions. The proposal has stimulated a broad debate. A key intervention in the debate was by the Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, who has argued against…