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Freedom Of Information (Amendment) Bill
The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was a private members bill introduced to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 2007 which failed to become law after a sponsor for the Bill could not be found in the House of Lords. Background and rationale Conservative Member of Parliament David Maclean introduced the bill to ensure that MPs correspondence is exempt from freedom of information laws such as the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Maclean said of his Bill: Although the government claimed it was neutral on the issue, private members bills rarely pass without government support, leading to claims the executive tacitly supported moves to water down freedom of information legislation. Members of the backbench committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party had emailed colleagues in support of the bill. The email said: The proposed changes complemented Government proposals to change the way freedom of information requests are costed. Critics of the changes claimed the i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Members Bill
A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in which a "private member" is any member of parliament (MP) who is not a member of the cabinet (executive). Other labels may be used for the concept in other parliamentary systems; for example, the label member's bill is used in the Scottish Parliament and the New Zealand Parliament, the term private senator's bill is used in the Australian Senate, and the term public bill is used in the Senate of Canada. In legislatures where the executive does not have the right of initiative, such as the United States Congress, the concept does not arise since bills are always introduced by legislators (or sometimes by popular initiative). In the Westminster system, most bills are " government bills" introduced by the executive, with private members' bills ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Commons Of The United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved. The House of Commons of England started to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1800 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the body became the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State. Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the more powerful House of Commons that is independent of the electoral process. While members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are usually drawn from the Commons. The House of Lords does not control the term of the prime minister or of the government. Only the lower house may forc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in Britain since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 356 Members of Parliament, 264 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 2 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 6,683 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference. The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party and was one of two dominant politica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Member Of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate Parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done." Members of parliament typically form parliamentary groups, sometimes called cauc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Maclean
David John Maclean, Baron Blencathra, (born 16 May 1953) is a Conservative Party life peer. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 1983 to 2010. Early and later life Born in Scotland, Maclean was educated at Fortrose Academy, Fortrose, and at the University of Aberdeen. Parliamentary career After unsuccessfully contesting Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber at the 1983 general election, he was elected to the House of Commons in a by-election seven weeks later, following the ennoblement of William Whitelaw. He took his seat when the House returned from summer recess in October. In Margaret Thatcher's government, Maclean served as a government whip from 1987 to 1989, when he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, retaining the position when John Major took over as Prime Minister in 1990. After the 1992 general election, he was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of the Environme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freedom Of Information Laws
Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfaction with the secrecy surrounding government policy development and decision making. In recent years Access to Information Act has also been used. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions. Also variously referred to as open records, or sunshine laws (in the United States), governments are typically bound by a duty to publish and promote openness. In many countries there are constitutional guarantees for the right of access to information, but these are usually unused if specific support legislation does not exist. Additionally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to ensure p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freedom Of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. Its application is limited in Scotland (which has its own freedom of information legislation) to UK Government offices located in Scotland. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election, developed by David Clark as a 1997 White Paper. The final version of the Act was criticised by freedom of information campaigners as a diluted form of what had been proposed in the White Paper. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005. The Act was the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's Department (now renamed the Ministry of Justice). However, freedom of information policy is now the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. The Act led to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliamentary Labour Party
In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour Party (which was created outside Parliament and later achieved office) and the Conservative and Liberal parties (which began as parliamentary factions). The term Parliamentary Labour Party refers to the party in Parliament, whereas the term Labour Party refers to the entire Labour Party, the parliamentary element of which is the PLP. A similar body for the Conservative Party is the 1922 Committee. An organisation for former members, the ''PLP in exile'', was established after the 2010 general election. Role The PLP holds regular meetings behind closed doors to question the Leader and to discuss its concerns. Labour MPs elect three of their number to Labour's National Executive Committee. Originally, the Leader of the Labour Party w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015. Straw was born in Essex and educated at Oaklands School, where his mother worked as a teacher, and later at Brentwood School. He studied Law at the University of Leeds before having a career as a barrister. He served as an adviser to cabinet minister Barbara Castle and was selected to succeed her as MP for the Blackburn constituency when she stood down at the 1979 United Kingdom general election. From 2007 to 2010, he served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and the Secretary of State for Justice throughout the Brown ministry. Straw is one of only three individuals to have served in Cabinet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Whip
The Public Whip is a parliamentary informatics project that analyses and publishes the voting history of MPs in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was developed by Francis Irving and Julian Todd following the 18 March 2003 Parliamentary Approval for the invasion of Iraq as a tool to record which MPs had defied their party's whip long after the information had become effectively inaccessible for reference. On 1 August 2011 Irving and Todd handed control of the site to a new team. The project is loosely affiliated to mySociety's TheyWorkForYou with which it shares a large part of the same parliamentary parsing code-base. In 2014 the OpenAustralia Foundation launched a fork of the project for Australia's federal parliament calleThey Vote For You. Awards and funding In 2004 the Public Whip won the ''New Statesman'' New Media Award for "civic renewal". The site has never received a grant from any funding body and remains entirely paid for by its creators, including server co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freedom Of Information Legislation In The United Kingdom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself their own laws", and with having rights and the civil liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the state. Frequently discussed kinds of political freedom include freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech. In one definition, something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, freedom is sometimes associated with free will, without undue or unjust constraints on that will, such as enslavement. It is an idea closely tied with the concept of negative liberty. Charles Taylor resolves one of the issues that separate "positive" and "negative" theories of freedom, as these were initially distinguished in Isa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
