Issues related with central government - Her Majesty's Government (HMG) - part one

3. You hear that your local MP is to introduce a Private Member's Bill to abolish car tax and replace it with an increase in petrol duties.

You contact the MP concerned and she informs you that she intends to introduce her Bill under the Ten Minute Rule but holds out little hope for its success. She says that she has raised the matter of abolition of car tax at questions time but was not satisfied with the Secretary of State's reply.

You consult Hansard to look up the Minister's reply and see that she said the matter was being considered by a cabinet committee and a Green Paper will be issued in the near future. The Government hopes to follow this with a White Paper in nine months' time.

(a) Explain the terms in bold above.

Private Member's Bill(PMB): a Bill proposed by an individual backbencher, normally on an issue dear to his or her heart, and/or one that concerns his or her constituents. While they may cast the media's spotlight onto an issue, most PMBs are never allotted sufficient parliamentary time to pass into law, but there have been exceptions, including the 1967 Abortion Bill, introduced by future Liberal leader David Steel.

Ten Minute Rule: one of three ways in which private members' Bills (PMB) may be introduced into Parliament and the one that most often grabs headlines. A member of Parliament must have their idea for a Bill proposed and seconded by colleagues, and obtain a further eight members' signatures, and they will then be given ten minutes in which to introduce their proposals to the Commons. A MP who opposes the Bill will then have the same amount of time to make a speech outlining his or her objections.

Questions Time: session of parliamentary business during which backbenchers and'or peers on all sides have the opportunity of questioning individual departmental ministers on the conduct of their ministerial business. Major spending departments each have a question time session at least once a fortnight, while the most famous is “Prime Minister's Question”, held every Wednesday lunchtime.

Secretary of State: an umbrella term for the most senior government minister in a spending department (e.g. the Secretary of State for Health).

Hansard: the official record of all parliamentary business in both Houses. Protected by legal privilege and now available to read online, it is nonetheless not an entirely verbatim record of proceedings (except for the words used by the serving prime minister).

Cabinet Committee: subsets of the Cabinet, usually made up of groups of three or more senior ministers whose departmental responsibilities are related in some way. There are three types: standing (permanent); and hoc (temporary); ministerial (permanent, but made up nor of ministers, but of senior civil servants from related spending departments).

Green Paper: a consultation document on a tentative government policy proposal that may, in time, evolve into a White Paper, and from there into a proposed Bill. All government Bills (other than emergency legislation) will go through at least one Green Paper stage, although if the public and/or interest groups react strongly against a proposal, it is unlikely to go much further.

White Paper: a crystallized version of a Green Paper, containing more concrete proposals. If a proposed government Bill has got this far, it will normally proceed further into a formal draft Bill, and may well subsequently become an Act of Parliament.