Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (Amendment) Bill

A

Bill

To

Amend the treaty ratification process to clarify the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty.

BE IT ENACTED by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. Amendment

(1) The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 is amended as follows.

(2) Section 22 is omitted.

(3) A new section 22A is inserted as follows--

"22A Section 20 not to apply when House of Commons resolves as such  
(1) Section 20 does not apply to a treaty if all of the conditions in this section are met.  (2) The first condition is that a Minister of the Crown is of the opinion that, exceptionally, the treaty should be ratified without the requirements of that section having been met.  
(3) The second condition is that a Minister has laid before Parliament a statement indicating that the Minister is of the opinion mentioned in subsection (2) and explaining why.  
(4) The third condition is that the House of Commons has not resolved, as mentioned in section 20(1)(c), that the treaty should not be ratified (whether or not the House of Lords has resolved as such).  
(5) The fourth condition is that the House of Commons has resolved that the treaty should be ratified." 

2. Commencement, full extent and title

1)- This Act may be cited as the Constitutional Reform and Governance (Amendment) Bill 2022.

2) This Act shall come into force immediately upon Royal Assent.

3) This Act extends to the whole of the United Kingdom.

This bill was written by The Rt. Hon The Viscount Houston, on behalf of the 35th Official Oppostion.

Opening speech:

Deputy Speaker,

We were recently brought to the edge of a constitutional crisis. Despite the very first speech in regards to their treaty from other members being one confirming their intent to submit a disapproval motion under Section 20 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, they decided to bring it into force immediately before any such division on the subject had occurred. If the disapproval motion had been submitted later, there would have been no recourse for the democratically elected legislature to weigh in on the treaty.

Parliamentary sovereignty is the absolute principle at the core of our system of government. It is with a heavy heart that recent actions revealed that our treaty ratification process needs a backstop, previously assumed to exist out of hope of good faith from whoever is in power, explicitly codified in the law.

My amendments allow governments to bring into force treaties with immediate effect, in the event they deem it to be an emergency. That is also the status quo. What it changes is allowing the Commons to disagree with this assertion of an emergency and still weigh in on crucial matters. If the Commons disagrees with the government's actions and rejects the treaty, my legislation gives the government a month of wiggle room to secure amendments to the treaty to satisfy the majority of legislators, at which point the treaty ratification process restarts, with them again able to assert that its an emergency and bring it into effect immediately if they so choose.

Nothing in this law stops the government from bringing treaties into force, it does however allow the Commons the right to disagree with them without forcing primary legislation to be tabled everytime such a dissonance occurs. Despite this being necessary due to recent specific actions, I hope legislators on all sides can agree this common sense step to secure the sovereignty of the House of Commons is a good one.

This vote will end on the 6th November at 10pm GMT.