The United
Kingdom
consists of four countries :
England, Scotland, Wales
forming
Great Britain,
and Northern Ireland (Ireland
until 1922).
The rules that apply to
the four
constituents used to be determined
- and the laws passed -
in London exclusively,
within the British Parliament as seen
in Sequence 2.
Things have evolved and If you
look
at how laws are sorted and organised on the
HSMO
site
you will see that subdivisions have
been created for the laws of three countries of the nation.
Long standing claims for more local
responsibility were met
through the Local Authorities Act
1972,
where Local Authorities were granted
some delegated powers
to produce locally enforceable
rules
and orders
under the authority of Parliament (by-laws).
This process is also referred to
as
primary
and secondary legislation.
The trend was extended in 1999
to the "territories"
through a process known as devolution.
Devolution gives the Welsh
and
Northern Ireland assemblies
and the Scottish Parliament
shared authority with regard
to specific matters such as
education, the health system or the
judiciary for example.
The devolution process is not
homogenous
It responds more to local
circumstances
than to a fully planned uniform delegation of powers.
Views
on devolution
Devolution in the UK -
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
click
here if link is missing
The Scottish
devolution process is probably the most elaborate and advanced of
them,
owing to a tradition of systems
inherited
from the past
where education and justice for
example
were organised along similar lines
but with local differences.
Scotland now has its own Parliament
(Scottish
Parliament)
consisting of Members of the Scottish
Parliament (MSP),
a First
Minister and an executive.
Walesshares
more with England than its counterparts and devolution
- although it was meant to satisfy
a popular demand -
should not deeply modify the regional
landscape in the short term.
It is now run by the National
Assembly for Wales
and has its own executive cabinet
headed
by a First Minister and a cabinet
.
The case of Northern
Ireland is much more complex
and reservations were made to
the use of devolved powers
in order to preserve peace in the
region.
One of the key elements in the
debate
was the Belfast Agreement
which still proves difficult to put
into practice.
In fact, London has
retained
the possibility to rule Northern Ireland directly
(Direct
Rule),
and has done so on several occasions,
when local political forces clashed,
or the situation in the country was
sensed from London as damaging or dangerous.
A later development is currently
under
way that will affect England.
A White Paper preparing for
a bill to develop regions in England has been presented by the
government.
Full text of the
White Paper for the English Regions
DETAILS ON
THE
VARIOUS FORMS OF DEVOLUTION ACROSS THE UK
