The
Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland (or the Imperial
Parliament, the British Parliament or the
Parliament at Westminster) is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom
and British
overseas territories. It alone has
parliamentary sovereignty,
conferring upon it ultimate power over all other political bodies
in the UK and its territories. At its head is the
Sovereign,
Queen Elizabeth II.
The
parliament is bicameral, with an upper
house, the House of
Lords
, and a lower house, the
House of Commons
. The Queen is the third component of the
legislature. The House of Lords includes two different types of
members: the
Lords Spiritual (the
senior
bishops of the
Church of England) and the
Lords Temporal (members of the
Peerage) whose members are not elected by the
population at large, but are appointed by the Sovereign on advice
of the Prime Minister.
Prior to the opening of the Supreme
Court
in October 2009 the House of Lords also performed a
judicial
role through the Law Lords. The
House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber with elections
to it held at least every 5 years.
The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of
Westminster
(commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament"), in
the City of
Westminster
in London
. By
constitutional
convention, all
government
ministers, including the
Prime Minister, are
members of the House of Commons or, less often, the House of Lords,
and are thereby technically accountable to the respective branches
of the legislature.
The
Parliament of Great
Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the
Treaty of Union by both the
Parliament of England and
Parliament of Scotland passing
Acts of Union. However, in practice
the parliament was a continuation of the English parliament with
the addition of Scottish MPs and peers. Parliament was further
enlarged by the ratification by the
Parliament of Great Britain and
the
Parliament of Ireland of
the
Act of Union , which
abolished the Irish Parliament; this added 100 Irish members to the
Commons and 32 to the Lords to create the Parliament of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Parliament of England had itself evolved from the
early medieval councils that advised the
sovereigns of England.
England has been called "the mother of parliaments", its democratic
institutions having set the standards for many democracies
throughout the world, and the United Kingdom parliament is the
largest Anglophone legislative body in the world.
In theory, supreme legislative power is vested in the
Queen-in-Parliament; in practice in
modern times, real power is vested in the House of Commons; the
Sovereign generally acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and
the powers of the House of Lords are limited.
History
In the
Middle Ages and early modern period there were the four
separate kingdoms of England
, Scotland
, Ireland
and Wales
and these
developed separate parliaments. The Laws in Wales Acts of
1535–42 annexed Wales as part of
England, the 1707 Acts of Union
brought England and Scotland together under the Parliament of Great Britain, and
the 1800 Act of Union included
Ireland under the Parliament of the United Kingdom and
Ireland.
Parliament of England
English parliament in front of the
king c.
The English Parliament traces its origins to the
Anglo-Saxon . In 1066,
William of Normandy brought a
feudal system, by which he sought advice of a
council of tenants-in-chief and
ecclesiastic before making laws. In 1215, the
tenants-in-chief secured the
Magna Carta
from
King John, which established
that the king may not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal
taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed), save with the
consent of his royal council, which slowly developed into a
parliament.
In 1265,
Simon
de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester summoned the first
elected Parliament. The
franchise in parliamentary elections for
county constituencies was uniform throughout the
country, extending to all those who owned the
freehold of land to an annual rent
of 40
shillings (
Forty-shilling
Freeholders).
In the
boroughs, the
franchise varied across the country; individual boroughs had
varying arrangements. This set the scene for the so-called
"
Model Parliament" of 1295 adopted
by
Edward I. By the reign of
Edward II, Parliament had been
separated into two Houses: one including the nobility and higher
clergy, the other including the knights and
burgesses, and no law could be made, nor any
tax levied, without the consent of both Houses as well as of the
Sovereign.
When
Elizabeth I was
succeeded in 1603 by the
Scottish King
James VI (thus becoming James I
of England), the countries both came under his rule but each
retained its own Parliament. James I's successor,
Charles I, quarrelled with the English
Parliament and, after he provoked the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms, their
dispute developed into the
English
Civil War. Charles was executed in 1649 and under
Oliver Cromwell's
Commonwealth of England the House of
Lords was abolished, and the House of Commons made subordinate to
Cromwell. After Cromwell's death,
the Restoration of 1660 restored the
monarchy and the House of Lords.
Amidst fears of a
Roman Catholic
succession, the
Glorious
Revolution of 1688 deposed
James
II (James VII of Scotland) in favour of the joint rule of
Mary II and
William III, whose agreement to the
English Bill of Rights
introduced a
constitutional
monarchy, though the supremacy of the Crown remained. For the
third time, a
Convention
Parliament, i.e., one not summoned by the king, was required to
determine the succession.
Parliament of Wales
King
Hywel Dda first codified Welsh Law in
945 with a parliamentary conference at Whitland, though subsequent
Welsh law was revised by jurists as
common
law. Perhaps the first proper parliament (though short-lived)
was set up by
Owain Glyndwr in 1404.
Following the
Laws
in Wales Acts 1535–1542, Welsh constituencies sent MPs to the
English Parliament. However there was no lawmaking power
specifically within Wales until the establishment of
National Assembly for Wales
under
Government of Wales
Act 1998.
Parliament of Scotland
From the time of
Kenneth mac
Alpin, the early
Kingdom of
Scotland (see
Kingdom of Alba)
had been ruled by chieftains and kings under the
suzerainty of the
King
of Scots, all offices being filled through election by an
assembly under the
Gaelic system of
tanistry, which combined a hereditary element with
the consent of those ruled. After
Macbeth was overthrown by
Malcolm III in 1057 the
feudal system of
primogeniture was gradually introduced, as
Scotland came increasingly under
Norman
influence.
In the
High Middle Ages
the King's Council of Bishops and Earls evolved into the unicameral Estates of Parliament of 1235, with
the colloquium at Kirkliston
(the first meeting of Parliament for which records
survive), which had both a political and judicial role. From
1326 the
Three Estates ( ) had
clerics, lay
tenants-in-chief and the
burgh Commissioners (approximately equivalent to early
burgesses, later Members of Parliament, in the contemporaneous
Parliament of England) sitting in a single chamber, with powers
over taxation and a strong influence over
justice, foreign policy, war, and
legislation.
The Parliament chose a committee called the Lords of the Articles
(comparable to a modern
select committee) to
draft legislation, which was then presented to the full Parliament
to be confirmed.
Following
the Reformation and pressure
from the Kirk
, Catholic clergy were
excluded from 1567, and after Protestant bishops were abolished in 1638 (see
Bishops' Wars) the Scottish Parliament
became an entirely lay legislature.
During the reign of
James VI,
the Lords of the Articles came more under the influence of
the Crown, and following his accession to the
throne of England in 1603 (see
Union of the Crowns) he used
them to run Scotland from London. During the
Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the
Covenanting period (1638–51) the
Scottish Parliament took control of the
executive, effectively wresting
sovereignty from
Charles I. After Scotland was
invaded
by
Oliver Cromwell, his
Protectorate government imposed a brief
Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union in 1657.
The
Scottish Parliament returned after the Restoration of Charles II to the thrones of England and Ireland in 1660 (he had already been
crowned King of Scots at Scone
on 1 January
1651). After the Glorious Revolution formally changed
England's monarch in February 1689, William II of Scotland (William III
of England) summoned a Convention of the Estates, which
considered competing letters from both William and from James VII of Scotland (James II of
England), and set out its terms and conditions in the Claim of Right, and duly proclaimed
William and Mary II to be the
joint monarchs of Scotland, at
Edinburgh
on 11 April 1689.
A new
Scottish Parliament with devolved powers
was created in 1999; see Scottish Parliament
.
Parliament of Ireland
The Irish Parliament was founded to represent the English community
in the
Lordship of Ireland,
while the native or
Gaelic Irish were
ineligible to vote or stand for office, the first known meeting
being in 1264.
The English presence shrank to an enclave
around Dublin
known as
the Pale.
In 1541
Henry VIII declared
the
Kingdom of Ireland and
embarked on the
Tudor
re-conquest of Ireland. The Gaelic Irish lords were now
entitled to attend the Irish Parliament as equals of the majority
of English descent. Disputes followed the
English Reformation, when most of the
population remained
Roman Catholic,
and in 1613–15 constituencies were fixed so that Protestant
settlers held the majority in the Irish Parliament, creating the
foundation for the
Protestant
Ascendancy. After the
Irish
Rebellion of 1641, Catholics were barred from voting or
attending the Parliament in the
Cromwellian Act of Settlement 1652.
Under
James II, the Catholics
regained ground and during the
Jacobite war in Ireland he agreed
to the Irish Parliament's demands for autonomy and restitution of
lands. After the victory of
William III of England these gains
were reversed, with the
Penal Laws making
things worse.
Poyning's Law of 1494
had made the Irish Parliament subordinate to the Parliament of
England, but the
Constitution of
1782 removed these restrictions and about a decade later
Catholics gained the right to vote, though they were still barred
from membership.
Parliament of Great Britain
Following
the Treaty of Union in 1707,
Acts of Union were passed in both
the Parliament of England and
the Parliament of Scotland,
which created a new Kingdom of Great Britain
. The Acts dissolved both parliaments,
replacing them with a new
Parliament of the Kingdom of Great
Britain based in the former home of the English parliament.
All the traditions, procedures, and standing orders of the English
parliament were retained, as were the incumbent officers, and
English members comprised the overwhelming majority of the new
body. It was not even considered necessary to hold a new general
election. While
Scots law and Scottish
legislation remained separate, the legislation was now dealt with
by the new parliament.
After the
Hanoverian George I ascended the throne in
1714 through an
Act of
Parliament, power began to shift from the Sovereign, and by the
end of his reign the position of the ministers — who had to
rely on Parliament for support — was cemented. Towards the end
of the 18th century the monarch still had considerable influence
over Parliament, which was dominated by the English aristocracy, by
means of
patronage, but had ceased to
exert direct power: for instance, the last occasion
Royal Assent was withheld, was in 1708 by
Queen Anne. At
general elections the vote was restricted
to
freeholders and landowners, in
constituencies that were out of date, so that in many "
rotten boroughs" seats could be bought while
major cities remained unrepresented. Reformers and
Radical sought parliamentary reform,
but as the
Napoleonic Wars developed
the government became repressive against dissent and progress
toward reform was stalled.
Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland
The
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland
was created in 1801 by the merger of the Kingdom of
Great Britain and the Kingdom of
Ireland under the Act of
Union.
The principle of ministerial responsibility to the lower House did
not develop until the 19th century — the House of Lords was
superior to the House of Commons both in theory and in practice.
Members of the House of Commons were elected in an antiquated
electoral system, under which
constituencies of vastly different
sizes existed.
Thus, the borough of Old Sarum
, with seven voters, could elect two members, as
could the borough of Dunwich
, which had completely disappeared into the sea due
to land erosion. In many cases, members of the Upper House
also controlled tiny constituencies, known as pocket or
rotten boroughs, and could ensure the
election of their relatives or supporters. Many seats in the House
of Commons were "owned" by the Lords. After the reforms of the 19th
century, beginning with the
Reform Act
1832, the electoral system in the lower House was much more
regularised. No longer dependent on the upper House for their
seats, members of the House of Commons began to grow more
assertive.
The supremacy of the British House of Commons was established in
the early 20th century. In 1909, the Commons passed the so-called
"People's Budget", which made numerous changes to the taxation
system in a manner detrimental to wealthy landowners. The House of
Lords, which consisted mostly of powerful landowners, rejected the
Budget. On the basis of the Budget's popularity and the Lords'
consequent unpopularity, the
Liberal
Party narrowly won two general elections in 1910. Using the
result as a mandate, the Liberal Prime Minister,
Herbert Henry Asquith, introduced the
Parliament bill, which sought to restrict the powers of the House
of Lords. (He did not reintroduce the land tax provision of the
People's Budget). When the Lords refused to pass the bill, Asquith
countered with a promise extracted from the King in secret before
the second general election of 1910 and requested the creation of
several hundred Liberal peers so as to erase the
Conservative majority in the House
of Lords. In the face of such a threat, the House of Lords narrowly
passed the bill. The
Parliament Act
1911, as it became, prevented the Lords from blocking a
money bill (a bill dealing with
taxation), and allowed them to delay any other bill for
a maximum of three sessions (reduced to two sessions in 1949),
after which it could become law over their objections.
Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland
The
Government of Ireland Act
1920 created the parliaments of Northern Ireland
and Southern
Ireland and reduced the representation of both parts at
Westminster. (The number of Northern Ireland seats was
increased again after the introduction of
direct rule in 1973.) The
Irish Free State became independent in
1922, and in 1927 parliament was renamed the
Parliament of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Further reforms to the House of Lords have been made during the
20th century. The
Life Peerages
Act 1958 authorised the regular creation of
life peerage dignities. By the 1960s, the
regular creation of hereditary peerage dignities had ceased;
thereafter, almost all new peers were life peers only. More
recently, the
House of Lords Act
1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in
the Upper House (although it made an exception for 92 of them on a
temporary basis, to be elected to life-terms by the other
hereditary peers with bi-elections upon their death). The House of
Lords is now a chamber that is subordinate to the House of Commons.
Additionally, the Constitutional Reform Act
2005 led to abolition of the judicial functions of
the House of Lords with the creation of the new Supreme Court
of the United Kingdom in October 2009.
Composition and powers
The
legislative authority, the Crown-in-Parliament, has three separate
elements: the Monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of
Commons. No individual may be a member of both
Houses, and members of the House of Lords are legally barred from
voting in elections for members of the House of Commons.
Royal Assent of the Monarch,
represented by the government, is required for all Bills to become
law, and certain Delegated Legislation must be made by the Monarch
by
Order-in-Council. The Crown and
HM Government also have executive powers which do not depend on
Parliament, through
prerogative
powers including the appointment of the government. The
prerogative powers include among others the abilities to
dissolve
Parliament, make treaties, declare war, award honours, and
appoint officers and civil servants. In practice these are always
exercised by the monarch on the advice of the
Prime Minister and the
other ministers of
HM Government. The
Prime Minister and government are directly accountable to
Parliament, through its control of public finances, and to the
public, through election of Members of Parliament.
The Monarch also chooses the Prime Minister, who then forms a
government from members of the houses of parliament. This must be
someone who can command a majority in the House of Commons. This is
usually a straightforward decision, though occasionally the monarch
has to make a judgment, as in the appointment of
Alec Douglas-Home in 1963 when it was
thought that the incumbent Prime Minister,
Harold Macmillan, had become ill with
terminal cancer.
The Upper House is formally styled
The Right Honourable The
Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled, the
Lords Spiritual being clergymen of the
Church of England and the Lords Temporal
being
Peers of the Realm. The Lords
Spiritual and Lords Temporal are considered separate "
estates," but they sit, debate and vote
together.
Since the
Parliament Acts
1911 and 1949, the powers of the House of Lords have been very
much less than those of the House of Commons. All bills except
money bills are debated and voted upon
in House of Lords; however by voting against a bill, the House of
Lords can only delay it for a maximum of two parliamentary sessions
over a year. After this time, the House of Commons can force the
Bill through without the Lords' consent under the Parliament Acts.
The House of Lords can also hold the government to account through
questions to government ministers and the operation of a small
number of select committees.
The highest court in England & Wales and
Northern Ireland used to be a committee of the House of Lords, but
it became an independent supreme
court in 2009.
The Lords Spiritual formerly included all of the senior clergymen
of the Church of England — archbishops, bishops, abbots and
mitred priors. Upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry
VIII the abbots and mitred priors lost their positions in
Parliament. All diocesan bishops continued to sit in Parliament,
but the
Bishopric of
Manchester Act 1847, and later acts, provide that only the 26
most senior are Lords Spiritual. These always include the
incumbents of the "five great
sees",
namely the
Archbishop of
Canterbury, the
Archbishop of
York, the
Bishop of London, the
Bishop of Durham and the
Bishop of Winchester. The remaining 21
Lords Spiritual are the most senior diocesan bishops, ranked in
order of
consecration.
The Lords Temporal are all members of the
Peerage. Formerly, they were hereditary peers. The
right of some hereditary peers to sit in Parliament was not
automatic: after Scotland and England united into Great Britain in
1707, it was provided that all peers whose dignities had been
created by English Kings could sit in Parliament, but those whose
dignities had been created by Scottish Kings were to elect a
limited number of "
representative
peers". A similar arrangement was made in respect of Ireland
when that nation merged with Great Britain in 1801, but when
southern Ireland left the United Kingdom in 1922 the election of
Irish representative peers ceased. By the
Peerage Act 1963, the election of Scottish
representative peers also ended, and all Scottish peers were
granted the right to sit in Parliament. Under the House of Lords
Act 1999, only life peerages (that is to say, peerage dignities
which cannot be inherited) automatically entitle their holders to
seats in the House of Lords. Of the hereditary peers, only
92 — the
Earl Marshal, the
Lord Great Chamberlain and
the 90 elected by other peers — retain their seats in the
House.
The Commons, the last of the "estates" of the Kingdom, are
represented in the House of Commons, which is formally styled
The Honourable The Commons in Parliament Assembled
(
commons coming not from the term
commoner, but
from , the old French term for a district). The House currently
consists of 646 members. Until the
2005 general election, it
consisted of 659 members, but the number of Scottish Members was
reduced by the
Scotland Act 1998.
Each "Member of Parliament" or "MP" is chosen by a single
constituency according to the
First-Past-the-Post
electoral system.
Universal adult suffrage exists for those 18 and over; citizens of
the United Kingdom, and those of the Republic of Ireland
and Commonwealth
nations resident in the United Kingdom are qualified to
vote. The term of members of the House of Commons depends on
the term of Parliament, a maximum of five years; a general
election, during which all the seats are contested, occurs after
each dissolution (see below).
All legislation must be passed by the House of Commons to become
law and it controls taxation and the supply of money to the
government. Government ministers (including the Prime Minister)
must regularly answer questions in the House of Commons and there
are a number of
select
committees that scrutinise particular issues and the workings
of the government. There are also mechanisms that allow members of
the House of Commons to bring to the attention of the government
particular issues affecting their constituents.
Procedure
- See also the stages
of a bill section in Acts of Parliament in
the United Kingdom
Both houses of the British Parliament are presided over by a
speaker, the
Speaker of the House
for the Commons and the
Lord Speaker in
the House of Lords.
For the Commons, the approval of the Sovereign is theoretically
required before the election of the Speaker becomes valid, but it
is, by modern convention, always granted. The Speaker's place may
be taken by three deputies, known as the Chairman, First Deputy
Chairman and Second Deputy
Chairman of Ways and Means. (They
take their name from the Committee of Ways and Means, of which they
were once presiding officers, but which no longer exists.)
Prior to July 2006, the House of Lords was presided over by a
Lord Chancellor (a Cabinet member),
whose influence as Speaker was very limited (whilst the powers
belonging to the Speaker of the House of Commons are vast).
However, as part of the
Constitutional Reform Act
2005, the position of Speaker of the House of Lords (as it is
termed in the Act) was separated from the office of Lord
Chancellor, though the Lords remain largely self-governing.
Decisions on points of order and on the disciplining of unruly
members are made by the whole body in the Upper House, but by the
Speaker alone in the Lower House. Speeches in the House of Lords
are addressed to the House as a whole (using the words "My Lords"),
but those in the House of Commons are addressed to the Speaker
alone (using "Mr Speaker" or "Madam Speaker"). Speeches may be made
to both Houses simultaneously. As of March 2008, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy was the most recent
person to address both Houses.
Both Houses may decide questions by
voice
vote; members shout out "Aye" and "No" in the Commons — or
"Content" and "Not-Content" in the Lords —, and the presiding
officer declares the result. The pronouncement of either Speaker
may be challenged, and a recorded vote (known as a
division) demanded. (The Speaker of the
House of Commons may choose to overrule a frivolous request for a
division, but the Lord Speaker does not have that power). In each
House, a division requires members to file into one of the two
lobbies alongside the Chamber; their names are recorded by clerks,
and their votes are counted as they exit the lobbies to re-enter
the Chamber. The Speaker of the House of Commons is expected to be
non-partisan, and does not cast a vote except in the case of a tie;
the Lord Speaker, however, votes along with the other Lords.
Both Houses normally conduct their business in public, and there
are galleries where visitors may sit.
Term
Following a general election, a new Parliamentary session begins.
Parliament is formally summoned 40 days in advance by the
Sovereign, who is the source of parliamentary authority. On the day
indicated by the Sovereign's proclamation, the two Houses assemble
in their respective chambers. The Commons are then summoned to the
House of Lords, where
Lords
Commissioners (representatives of the Sovereign) instruct them
to elect a Speaker. The Commons perform the election; on the next
day, they return to the House of Lords, where the Lords
Commissioners confirm the election and grant the new Speaker the
royal approval in the Sovereign's name.
The business of Parliament for the next few days of its session
involves the taking of the
oaths
of allegiance. Once a majority of the members has taken the
oath in each House, the State Opening of Parliament may occur. The
Lords take their seats in the House of Lords Chamber, the Commons
appear at the Bar (immediately outside the Chamber), and the
Sovereign takes his or her seat on the throne. The Sovereign then
reads the
Speech from the
Throne — the content of which is determined by the
Ministers of the Crown — outlining the Government's
legislative agenda for the upcoming year. Thereafter, each House
proceeds to the transaction of legislative business.
By custom, before considering the Government's legislative agenda,
a bill is introduced
pro forma in each House — the
Select Vestries Bill in the
House of Lords and the
Outlawries
Bill in the House of Commons. These bills do not become laws;
they are ceremonial indications of the power of each House to
debate independently of the Crown. After the
pro forma
bill is introduced, each House debates the content of the Speech
from the Throne for several days. Once each House formally sends
its reply to the Speech, legislative business may commence,
appointing committees, electing officers, passing resolutions and
considering legislation.
A session of Parliament is brought to an end by a
prorogation. There is a ceremony similar to the
State Opening, but much less well-known. Normally, the Sovereign
does not personally attend the prorogation ceremony in the House of
Lords; he or she is represented by Lords Commissioners. The next
session of Parliament begins under the procedures described above,
but it is not necessary to conduct another election of a Speaker or
take the oaths of allegiance afresh at the beginning of such
subsequent sessions. Instead, the State Opening of Parliament
proceeds directly. To avoid the delay of opening a new session in
the event of an emergency during the long summer recess, Parliament
is no longer prorogued beforehand, but only after the Houses have
reconvened in the autumn; the State Opening follows a few days
later.
Each Parliament comes to an end, after a number of sessions, either
by the command of the Sovereign or by effluxion of time, the former
being more common in modern times. The dissolution of Parliament is
effected by the Sovereign, always on the advice of the Prime
Minister. The Prime Minister may seek dissolution because the time
is politically advantageous to his or her party. If the Prime
Minister loses the support of the House of Commons, he must either
resign or seek dissolution of Parliament to renew his or her
mandate.
Originally there was no fixed limit on the length of a Parliament,
but the
Triennial Act 1694 set
the maximum duration at three years. As the frequent elections were
deemed inconvenient, the
Septennial
Act 1715 extended the maximum to seven years, but the
Parliament Act 1911 reduced it to five.
During the
Second World War, the term
was temporarily extended to ten years by Acts of Parliament. Since
the end of the war the maximum has remained five years. Modern
Parliaments, however, rarely continue for the maximum duration;
normally, they are dissolved earlier. For instance, the
52nd, which
assembled in 1997, was dissolved after four years.
Formerly, the demise of the Sovereign automatically brought a
Parliament to an end, the Crown being seen as the (beginning, basis
and end) of the body, but this is no longer the case. The first
change was during the reign of William and Mary, when it was seen
to be inconvenient to have no Parliament at a time when succession
to the Crown could be disputed, and an act was passed that provided
that a Parliament was to continue for six months after the death of
a Sovereign, unless dissolved earlier. (This provision is today
contained in the
Representation of the
People Act 1867.)
After each Parliament concludes, the Crown issues writs to hold a
general election and elect new members of the House of Commons.
Membership of the House of Lords does not change due to
dissolution. Each Parliament that assembles following a general
election is deemed to be distinct from the one which just
concluded, and is separately numbered, the present Parliament being
the
Fifty-Fourth
Parliament of the United Kingdom since the formation of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. (Previous
Parliaments were "of Great Britain" or "of England", "of Scotland"
or "of Ireland".)
Legislative functions
Laws can be made by Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament.
While
Acts can apply to the whole of the UK including Scotland, due to
the continuing separation of Scots law
many Acts do not apply to Scotland and are either matched by
equivalent Acts that apply to Scotland alone or, since 1999, by
legislation set by the Scottish Parliament relating to devolved matters.
This has led to a paradox known as the
West Lothian question. The existence
of a devolved Scottish Parliament means that while Westminster MPs
from Scotland may vote directly on matters that affect English
constituencies, they may not have much power over their laws
effecting their own constituency. While any Act of the Scottish
Parliament may be overturned, amended or ignored by Westminster, in
practice this has yet to happen. Furthermore, the existence of the
Legislative Consent
Motion enables English MPs to vote on issues nominally devolved
to Scotland, as part of United Kingdom legislation. Since there is
no devolved "English Parliament", the converse is not true.
Laws, in draft form known as bills, may be introduced by any member
of either House, but usually a bill is introduced by a Minister of
the Crown. A bill introduced by a Minister is known as a
"Government Bill"; one introduced by another member is called a
"
Private Member's Bill". A
different way of categorising bills involves the subject. Most
bills, involving the general public, are called "
Public Bills". A bill that seeks to grant
special rights to an individual or small group of individuals, or a
body such as a local authority, is called a "
Private
Bill". A Public Bill which affects private rights (in the way a
Private Bill would) is called a "
Hybrid
Bill".
Private Members' Bills make up the majority of bills, but are far
less likely to be passed than government bills. There are three
methods for an MP to introduce a Private Member's Bill. The Private
Members' Ballot (once per Session) put names into a ballot, and
those who win are given time to propose a bill. The
Ten Minute Rule is another method, where MPs
are granted ten minutes to outline the case for a new piece of
legislation. Standing Order 57 is the third method, which allows a
bill to be introduced without debate if a day's notice is given to
the Table Office.
Filibustering is a
danger, as an opponent to a bill can waste much of the limited time
allotted to it. Private Members' Bills have no chance of success if
the current government opposes them, but they are used in moral
issues: the bills to decriminalise
homosexuality and
abortion were Private Members' Bills, for example.
Governments can sometimes attempt to use Private Members' Bills to
pass things it would rather not be associated with. "Handout bills"
are bills which a government hands to MPs who win Private Members'
Ballots.
Each Bill goes through several stages in each House. The first
stage, called the
first reading, is a
formality. At the
second reading, the
general principles of the bill are debated, and the House may vote
to reject the bill, by not passing the motion "That the Bill be now
read a second time". Defeats of Government Bills are extremely
rare, the last being in 2005.
Following the second reading, the bill is sent to a committee. In
the House of Lords, the
Committee of the Whole House or
the
Grand Committee are used. Each
consists of all members of the House; the latter operates under
special procedures, and is used only for uncontroversial bills. In
the House of Commons, the bill is usually committed to a Public
Bill Committee, consisting of between 16 and 50 members, but the
Committee of the Whole House is used for important legislation.
Several other types of committees, including Select Committees, may
be used, but rarely. A committee considers the bill clause by
clause, and reports the bill as amended to the House, where further
detailed consideration ("consideration stage" or "report stage")
occurs. However, a practice which used to be called the
kangaroo (Standing Order 31) allows the Speaker to select
which amendments are debated. This device is also used under
Standing Order 89 by the committee chairman, to restrict debate in
committee.
Once the House has considered the bill, the third reading follows.
In the House of Commons, no further amendments may be made, and the
passage of the motion "That the Bill be now read a third time" is
passage of the whole bill. In the House of Lords further amendments
to the bill may be moved. After the passage of the third reading
motion, the House of Lords must vote on the motion "That the Bill
do now pass." Following its passage in one House, the bill is sent
to the other House. If passed in identical form by both Houses, it
may be presented for the Sovereign's Assent. If one House passes
amendments that the other will not agree to, and the two Houses
cannot resolve their disagreements, the bill fails.
However, since the passage of the Parliament Act 1911 the power of
the House of Lords to reject bills passed by the House of Commons
has been restricted, and further restrictions were placed by the
Parliament Act 1949. If the House of Commons passes a public bill
in two successive sessions, and the House of Lords rejects it both
times, the Commons may direct that the bill be presented to the
Sovereign for his or her Assent, disregarding the rejection of the
Bill in the House of Lords. In each case, the bill must be passed
by the House of Commons at least one calendar month before the end
of the session. The provision does not apply to bills originated in
the House of Lords, to bills seeking to extend the duration of a
Parliament beyond five years, or to Private Bills. A special
procedure applies in relation to bills classified by the Speaker of
the House of Commons as "Money Bills". A Money Bill concerns
solely national taxation or public funds; the Speaker's
certificate is deemed conclusive under all circumstances. If the
House of Lords fails to pass a Money Bill within one month of its
passage in the House of Commons, the Lower House may direct that
the Bill be submitted for the Sovereign's Assent immediately.
Even before the passage of the Parliament Acts, the Commons
possessed pre-eminence in cases of financial matters. By ancient
custom, the House of Lords may not introduce a bill relating to
taxation or
Supply, nor amend a
bill so as to insert a provision relating to taxation or Supply,
nor amend a Supply Bill in any way. The House of Commons is free to
waive this privilege, and sometimes does so to allow the House of
Lords to pass amendments with financial implications. The House of
Lords remains free to reject bills relating to Supply and taxation,
but may be overruled easily if the bills are Money Bills. (A bill
relating to revenue and Supply may not be a Money Bill if, for
example, it includes subjects other than national taxation and
public funds).
The last stage of a bill involves the granting of the
Royal Assent. Theoretically, the Sovereign may
either grant the Royal Assent (that is, make the bill a law) or
withhold it (that is, veto the bill). Under modern conventions the
Sovereign always grants the Royal Assent, in the
Norman French words " " (the Queen wishes it;
"Le roy" instead in the case of a king). The last refusal to grant
the Assent was in 1708, when
Queen
Anne withheld her Assent from a bill "for the settling of
Militia in Scotland", in the words " " (the Queen will think it
over).
Thus, every bill obtains the assent of all three components of
Parliament before it becomes law (except where the House of Lords
is over-ridden under the
Parliament Acts 1911 and
1949). The words "BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's [King's] most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-", or,
where the House of Lords' authority has been overridden by use of
the Parliament Acts, the words "BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's
[King's] most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent
of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance
with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by
the authority of the same, as follows:-" appear near the beginning
of each Act of Parliament. These words are known as the
enacting formula.
Judicial functions
Prior to
the creation of the Supreme Court of the United
Kingdom in October 2009, Parliament also used to perform
several judicial functions. The Queen-in-Parliament
constituted the highest court in the realm for most purposes, but
the
Privy
Council had jurisdiction in some cases (for instance, appeals
from ecclesiastical courts). The jurisdiction of Parliament arose
from the ancient custom of petitioning the Houses to redress
grievances and to do justice. The House of Commons ceased
considering petitions to reverse the judgements of lower courts in
1399, effectively leaving the House of Lords as the court of last
resort. In modern times, the
judicial functions of
the House of Lords were performed not by the whole House, but
by a group of "Lords of Appeal in Ordinary" (judges granted life
peerage dignities under the
Appellate Jurisdiction Act
1876 by the Sovereign) and by "Lords of Appeal" (other peers
with experience in the judiciary).
However, under the Constitutional Reform Act
2005, these judicial functions were transferred to the newly
created Supreme Court in 2009, and the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary became
the first Justices of the Court. Peers who hold high
judicial office are no longer allowed to vote or speak in the Lords
until they retire as Justices.
In the
late 19th century, Acts allowed for the appointment of Scottish
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary and ended appeal in Scottish
criminal matters to the House of Lords, so that the High Court
of Justiciary
became the highest criminal court in Scotland. Nowadays the House of Lords legislative
committee usually has a minimum of two Scottish Judges to ensure
that some experience of Scots law is
brought to bear on Scottish appeals in civil cases, from the
Court of
Session
.
Certain other judicial functions have historically been performed
by the House of Lords. Until 1948, it was the body in which peers
had to be tried for
felonies or
high treason; now, they are tried by normal
juries. When the House of Commons
impeaches an individual, the trial takes place
in the House of Lords. Impeachments are now rare; the last one
occurred in 1806. In 2006, a number of MPs attempted to revive the
custom, having signed a motion for the impeachment of Tony Blair,
but this was unsuccessful.
Relationship with the Government
The British Government is answerable to the House of Commons.
However, neither the Prime Minister nor members of the Government
are elected by the House of Commons. Instead, the Queen requests
the person most likely to command the support of a majority in the
House, normally the leader of the largest party in the House of
Commons, to form a government. So that they may be accountable to
the Lower House, the Prime Minister and most members of the
Cabinet are, by
convention, members of the House of Commons. The last Prime
Minister to be a member of the House of Lords was
Alec Douglas-Home, 14th Earl of Home, who
became Prime Minister in 1963. To adhere to the convention under
which he was responsible to the Lower House, he disclaimed his
peerage and procured election to the House of Commons within days
of becoming Prime Minister.
Governments have a tendency to dominate the legislative functions
of Parliament, by using their in-built majority in the House of
Commons, and sometimes using their patronage power to appoint
supportive peers in the Lords. In practice, governments can pass
any legislation (within reason) in the Commons they wish, unless
there is major dissent by MPs in the governing party. But even in
these situations, it is highly unlikely a bill will be defeated,
though dissenting MPs may be able to extract concessions from the
government. In 1976,
Lord Hailsham
created a now widely used name for this behaviour, in an academic
paper called "
elective
dictatorship".
Parliament controls the executive by passing or rejecting its Bills
and by forcing Ministers of the Crown to answer for their actions,
either at
"Question Time"
or during meetings of the
parliamentary
committees. In both cases, Ministers are asked questions by
members of their Houses, and are obliged to answer.
Although the House of Lords may scrutinise the executive through
Question Time and through its committees, it cannot bring down the
Government. A ministry must always retain the confidence and
support of the House of Commons. The Lower House may indicate its
lack of support by rejecting a
Motion of
Confidence or by passing a
Motion of No
Confidence. Confidence Motions are generally originated by the
Government in order to reinforce its support in the House, whilst
No Confidence Motions are introduced by the Opposition. The motions
sometimes take the form "That this House has [no] confidence in Her
Majesty's Government" but several other varieties, many referring
to specific policies supported or opposed by Parliament, are used.
For instance, a Confidence Motion of 1992 used the form, "That this
House expresses the support for the economic policy of Her
Majesty's Government." Such a motion may theoretically be
introduced in the House of Lords, but, as the Government need not
enjoy the confidence of that House, would not be of the same effect
as a similar motion in the House of Commons; the only modern
instance of such an occurrence involves the 'No Confidence' motion
that was introduced in 1993 and subsequently defeated.
Many votes are considered votes of confidence, although not
including the language mentioned above. Important bills that form
part of the Government's agenda (as stated in the Speech from the
Throne) are generally considered matters of confidence. The defeat
of such a bill by the House of Commons indicates that a Government
no longer has the confidence of that House. The same effect is
achieved if the House of Commons "
withdraws Supply", that is, rejects the
budget.
Where a Government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons,
the Prime Minister is obliged either to resign, or seek the
dissolution of Parliament and a new general election. Where a Prime
Minister has ceased to retain a majority in that vote and requests
a dissolution, the Sovereign can in theory reject his request,
forcing his resignation and allowing the
Leader of the
Opposition to be asked to form a new government. This power is
used extremely rarely. The conditions that should be met to allow
such a refusal are known as the
Lascelles Principles. These conditions
and principles are merely informal conventions; it is possible,
though highly improbable, for the Sovereign to refuse dissolution
for no reason at all.
In practice, the House of Commons' scrutiny of the Government is
very weak. Since the
first-past-the-post electoral system is
employed in elections, the governing party tends to enjoy a large
majority in the Commons; there is often limited need to compromise
with other parties. Modern British political parties are so tightly
organised that they leave relatively little room for free action by
their MPs. In many cases, MPs may be expelled from their parties
for voting against the instructions of party leaders. During the
20th century, the Government has lost confidence issues only three
times — twice in 1924, and once in 1979.
Sovereignty
Several different views have been taken of Parliament's
sovereignty. According to the jurist
Sir William Blackstone, "It has sovereign
and uncontrollable authority in making, confirming, enlarging,
restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of
laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations,
ecclesiastical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal
… it can, in short, do every thing that is not naturally
impossible."
A different view has been taken by the Scottish judge
Lord Cooper of
Culross. When he decided the 1953 case of
MacCormick v. Lord Advocate as Lord
President of the Court of Session, he stated, "The principle of unlimited sovereignty
of Parliament is a distinctively English principle and has no
counterpart in Scottish constitutional law." He continued,
"Considering that the
Union
legislation extinguished the Parliaments of Scotland and
England and replaced them by a new Parliament, I have difficulty in
seeing why the new Parliament of Great Britain must inherit all the
peculiar characteristics of the English Parliament but none of the
Scottish." Nevertheless, he did not give a conclusive opinion on
the subject. Thus, the question of Parliamentary sovereignty
appears to remain unresolved. Parliament has not passed any Act
defining its own sovereignty. A related possible limitation on
Parliament relates to the Scottish legal system and Presbyterian
faith, preservation of which were Scottish preconditions to the
creation of the unified Parliament. Since the UK Parliament was set
up in reliance on these promises, it may be that it has no power to
make laws that break them.
Parliament's power has often been eroded by its own Acts.
Acts
passed in 1921 and 1925
granted the Church of
Scotland complete independence in ecclesiastical
matters. More recently, its power has been restricted by
membership of the
European Union,
which has the power to make laws enforceable in each member state.
In the
Factortame case, the
European Court of Justice ruled
that UK courts could have powers to overturn UK legislation
contravening EU law.
Parliament has also created national
devolved assemblies with legislative authority in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland. Parliament still has the power over areas
for which responsibility lies with the devolved institutions, but
would gain the agreement of those institutions to act on their
behalf. Similarly, it has granted the power to make regulations to
Ministers of the Crown, and the power to enact religious
legislation to the
General Synod of
the Church of England. (Measures of the General Synod and, in some
cases proposed
statutory
instruments made by ministers, must be approved by both Houses
before they become law.) In every case aforementioned, authority
has been conceded by Act of Parliament and may be taken back in the
same manner. It is entirely within the authority of Parliament, for
example, to abolish the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland or to leave the EU.
However, Parliament
also revoked its legislative competence over Australia and Canada
with the
Australia and Canada Act: although the UK Parliament could
pass an Act reversing its action, it would not take effect in
Australia or Canada as the competence of the Imperial
Parliament is no longer recognised there in law.
One well-recognised exception to Parliament's power involves
binding future Parliaments. No Act of Parliament may be made secure
from amendment or repeal by a future Parliament. For example,
although the
Act of Union 1800
states that the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland are to be
united "forever", Parliament permitted southern Ireland to leave
the UK in 1922.
Privileges
Each House of Parliament possesses and guards various ancient
privileges. The House of Lords relies on inherent right. In the
case of the House of Commons, the Speaker goes to the Lords'
Chamber at the beginning of each new Parliament and requests
representatives of the Sovereign to confirm the Lower House's
"undoubted" privileges and rights. The ceremony observed by the
House of Commons dates to the reign of King Henry VIII. Each House
is the guardian of its privileges, and may punish breaches thereof.
The extent of parliamentary privilege is based on law and custom.
Sir William Blackstone states that these privileges are "very large
and indefinite", and cannot be defined except by the Houses of
Parliament themselves.
The foremost privilege claimed by both Houses is that of
freedom of speech in debate; nothing said
in either House may be questioned in any court or other institution
outside Parliament. Another privilege claimed is that of freedom
from
arrest; at one time this was held to
apply for any arrest except for
high
treason,
felony or
breach of the peace but it now excludes
any arrest on criminal charges; it applies during a session of
Parliament, and 40 days before or after such a session. Members of
both Houses are no longer privileged from service on
juries.
Both Houses possess the power to punish breaches of their
privilege. Contempt of Parliament — for example, disobedience
of a
subpoena issued by a committee —
may also be punished. The House of Lords may imprison an individual
for any fixed period of time, but an individual imprisoned by the
House of Commons is set free upon
prorogation. The
punishments imposed by either House may not be challenged in any
court, and the Human Rights Act does not apply.
Emblem
The quasi-official emblem of the Houses of Parliament is a crowned
portcullis. The portcullis was originally
the badge of various English noble families from the 14th century.
It went on to be adopted by the kings of the
Tudor dynasty in the 1500s, under whom the
Palace of Westminster became the regular meeting place of
Parliament. The crown was added to make the badge a specifically
royal symbol.
The
portcullis probably first came to be associated with the Palace of
Westminster through its use as decoration in the rebuilding of
the Palace after the fire of 1512. However, at the time it
was only one of many symbols. The widespread use of the portcullis
throughout the Palace dates from the nineteenth century, when
Charles Barry and
Augustus Pugin used it extensively as a
decorative feature in their designs for the new Palace built
following the disastrous 1834 fire.
The crowned portcullis came to be accepted during the 20th century
as the emblem of both houses of parliament. This was simply a
result of custom and usage rather than a specific decision. The
emblem now appears on official stationery, publications and papers,
and is stamped on various items in use in the Palace of
Westminster, such as cutlery, silverware and china.
See also
References
Notes
-
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/UKgovernment/Parliament/DG_073604
- Group wants Glyndwr Parliament, BBC
10/8/2004
- Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542: see Laws in Wales Act 1535 and Laws in Wales Act 1542 from the Statute
Law Database
- K. Brown and R. Tanner, History of the Scottish
Parliament, i, 'introduction'.
- Brown and Tanner, passim; R. Tanner, The Late Medieval
Scottish Parliament; K. Brown and A. Mann, History of the
Scottish Parliament
- R. Rait, 'Parliaments of Scotland' (1928)
- R. Tanner, 'The Lords of the Articles before 1542', in
Scottish Historical Review (2000)
- Rait, Parliaments of Scotland
- Act of Union 1707, Article 1.
- Human Rights Act 1998, section 6(3).
- The Portcullis (factsheet), House of Commons
Information Office, November 2007
Sources
- Blackstone, Sir William. (1765). Commentaries on the Laws
of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- K. M. Brown and R. J. Tanner, The History of the Scottish
Parliament volume 1: Parliament and Politics, 1235-1560
(Edinburgh, 2004)
- Davies, M. (2003). Companion to the Standing Orders and guide to
the Proceedings of the House of Lords, 19th ed.
- Farnborough, Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron. (1896).
Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George
the Third, 11th ed. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
- "Parliament."
.
Encyclopædia
Britannica, 11th ed. London:
Cambridge University Press.
- R. Rait, The Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow,
1924)
- R. J. Tanner, 'The Lords of the Articles before 1540: a
reassesment', Scottish Historical Review, LXXIX (October
2000)
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