In January 2010, the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation recommended that section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983 should be repealed. The provision was repealed by the Mental Health Discrimination Act 2013.
This document, produced especially for Parliament Week 2013, examines the role that women have played in Parliament. It includes a statistics on the increasing number of women in Parliament, brief profiles of selected Women Members and finishes by examining key pieces of legislation that have been passed by women.
This paper sets out key statistics about the House of Commons. The aim is to provide comparisons over time, though periods may vary according to relevance and the availability of consistent data. Some are for Parliamentary sessions, some by calendar year and some by financial year. This should be borne in mind when comparing different sets of information.
This Note provides information on developments in parliamentary privilege since the last major review by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege report in 1999.
This note introduces the Liaison Committee's review "Select committee effectiveness, resources and powers" (November 2012) and the academic literature on the effectiveness of select committees
On 16 July 2012 a Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was established by a motion in the House of Commons. The powers of the Commission are as set out by the motion. It is due to report its main recommendations on legislation action before 18 December 2012 before the Banking Reform Bill is published.
This standard note provides a summary of the main recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary representation which published its final report in January 2010.
This note outlines the background to various proposals that have been made for changes to the way in which the members of select committees are nominated. It includes details of the proposals made by the Select Committee on Reform of the House of Commons, which was established in July 2009 to advise on reforms to, inter alia, make select committee processes more democratic; and details of the recommendations adopted by the House. It also includes details of the initial operation of the new system of elected select committee chairs, and nominations, from June 2010 onwards.
This Note summarises the Lords stages of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill 2010-11. It supplements Research Paper 10/55 which was produced for the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons and Research Paper 10/72 which summarises all the Commons stages of the Bill.
This note briefly reviews committees that have (or have had) a role in developing reform proposals, then it briefly reviews recent reform proposals that have been implemented or are underway but not fully implemented. Finally it notes legislation before Parliament this Session that is likely to affect how the House of Commons operates.