The legislatures of the United Kingdom are derived from a number of different sources. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body for the United Kingdom and the British overseas territories with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each having their own devolved legislatures. Each of the three major jurisdictions of the United Kingdom has its own laws and legal system.
A statutory instrument (SI) is the principal form in which delegated legislation is made in Great Britain.
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
A joint committee is a committee made up of members of the two chambers of a bicameral legislature. In other contexts, it refers to a committee with members from more than one organization.
The parliamentary committees of the United Kingdom are committees of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Each consists of a small number of Members of Parliament from the House of Commons, or peers from the House of Lords, or a mix of both, appointed to deal with particular areas or issues; most are made up of members of the Commons. The majority of parliamentary committees are select committees. The remit of these committees vary depending on whether they are committees of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
Delegated legislation or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom is law that is not enacted by a legislative assembly such as the UK Parliament, but made by a government minister, a delegated person or an authorised body under powers given to them by an Act of Parliament.
Thomas David Simpson is a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician in Northern Ireland, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Upper Bann from 2005 to 2019.
Margaret Alison of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar, is a Scottish hereditary peer and politician. She was a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 1975 to 2020 and was one of 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the Lords in 1999. She is the holder of the original earldom of Mar, the oldest peerage title in the United Kingdom. She is the only suo jure countess and was the only female hereditary peer in the House of Lords from 2014 to 2020. She is also a farmer and former specialist goats cheesemaker in Great Witley, Worcestershire.
André Bachand is a former Canadian politician and lawyer.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee is a committee of UK parliamentarians. Members are drawn from the House of Lords. The committee has several primary functions.
Citation of United Kingdom legislation includes the systems used for legislation passed by devolved parliaments and assemblies, for secondary legislation, and for prerogative instruments. It is relatively complex both due to the different sources of legislation in the United Kingdom, and because of the different histories of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
A Scottish statutory instrument is subordinate legislation made by the Scottish Ministers, as well as subordinate legislation made by public bodies using powers provided to be exercisable by Scottish statutory instrument. SSIs are the main form of subordinate legislation in Scotland, being used by default to exercise powers delegated to the Scottish Ministers, the Lord Advocate, the High Court of Justiciary, the Court of Session, and the King-in-Council.
The Defence Select Committee is one of the Select Committees of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, having been established in 1979. It examines the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated public bodies, including the British Armed Forces. The Committee's remit does not generally review Defence Intelligence which instead falls under the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.
The Select Committee on Statutory Instruments is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to scrutinise statutory instruments made in exercise of powers granted by Act of Parliament where the instrument has been laid before the House of Commons only. The committee's responsibilities are those the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has with respect to instruments laid before both Houses, and its members are the Commons members of the joint committee.
The Ecclesiastical Committee is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, created by the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 to review Church of England measures submitted to Parliament by the Legislative Committee of the General Synod.
A delegated legislation committee (DLC) is a general committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom that allows for debate of a statutory instrument, Church Measure, or other forms of delegated legislation which have been laid before the House of Commons. With respect to statutory instruments, it differs from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and Commons Select Committee on Statutory Instruments in that those committees only scrutinise certain technical aspects of them. By contrast, DLCs provide a forum for discussing the merits of proposed instruments. They do not approve or reject delegated legislation, but merely debate it on a motion "That this committee has considered" the legislation. A statutory instrument or measure debated in a DLC is not normally later debated on the House floor; rather, a vote is taken without debate if one is sought.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is a select committee of the House of Lords that refers secondary legislation, such as statutory instruments, to the House that it considers interesting or important. This is unlike the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and Commons Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, which only scrutinise instruments for legal and drafting defects. The specific criteria used by the committee are whether the legislation—
- is politically or legally important or gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House
- may be inappropriate in view of changed circumstances since the enactment of the parent Act
- may inappropriately implement European Union legislation
- may imperfectly achieve its policy objectives.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, for the first time, set in legislation a default fixed election date for general elections in the United Kingdom. It remained in force until 2022, when it was repealed. Since then, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so. Prime ministers have often employed this mechanism to call an election before the end of their five-year term, sometimes fairly early in it. Critics have said this gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister, allowing them to call a general election at a time that suits them electorally. While it was in force, the FTPA removed this longstanding power of the prime minister.
A joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is a joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, formed to examine a particular issue, whose members are drawn from both the House of Commons and House of Lords. It is a type of Parliamentary committee of the United Kingdom.
The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and reinstated the prior constitutional situation, by reviving the power of the monarch to dissolve and summon parliament. As the monarch exercises this power at the request of the prime minister, this restored the power of the prime minister to have a general election called at a time chosen by the Prime Minister.