Lecture 3.2. The Parliament

Plan

1. General characteristic of Parliament

2. Parliamentary Procedures

3. The House of Commons

4. The House of Lords

1. Her Majesty’s Government, in spite of its name, derives its authority and power from its party representation in Parliament. While the government machinery is frequently referred to as ‘Whitehall’, Parliament is known as ‘Westminster’, since it is housed in the Palace of Westminster, once a home of the monarchy. Like the monarchy, Parliament is an ancient institution, dating from the middle of the thirteenth century.

Parliament is the seat of British democracy, but it is perhaps valuable to remember that while the House of Lords was created in order to provide a council of the nobility for the king, the Commons were summoned originally in order to provide the king with money. The more money a king demanded the more the Commons questioned its use. Because of its financial power, its ability to raise or withhold money, the House of Commons eventually – from the seventeenth century onwards – gained power not only in matters of finance but also of legislation over both the monarch and also the Lords.

Parliament is the supreme legislative body of the state. Free from the constraints of a written constitution it may make any laws it pleases. It could even prolong its own life without consulting the electorate, if it chose to do so. Thus Parliament, rather than the will of the people, is clearly the real sovereign power in the state. The only guarantee against parliamentary tyranny is the sense of the tradition and reasonableness of its members.

Furthermore, in practice it is not Parliament as a whole which is sovereign, but the government of the day and its supporters, since they almost invariably from a majority in the Commons. For the duration of its normal term, five years, the government of the day may enact or implement its policies, so long as it can ensure party support in the Commons.

Parliament’s functions today are to pass laws, to raise enough money through taxation to enable the government to function, to examine government policy and administration, particularly its financial programme, and to debate or discuss important political issues.

The life of a Parliament is not fixed, and the government of the day may call for a general election at any time during its five-year term. Each Parliament is divided into annual sessions, running normally from October to October with breaks for public holidays and for a long summer ‘recess’ (usually late July until October).

2. Each parliamentary session begins with the ‘State Opening of Parliament’, a ceremonial occasion in which the Queen proceeds from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster where she delivers the Queen’s Speech from her throne in the House of Lords. Her speech is drafted by her government, and describes what the government intends to implement during the forthcoming session. Leading members of the Commons may hear the speech from the far end of the chamber, but are not allowed to enter the House of Lords. During the next five or so days, the government and Opposition debate aspects of the Queen’s Speech in the Commons and vote on the amendments which the Opposition proposes. Since the speech is a statement of policy, defeat on any such vote would oblige the government to resign.

For most of the year the Commons adopts a routine of meeting each weekday afternoon, and ‘sitting’ until about 10.30 p.m. although it sometimes sits beyond midnight. On Fridays the Commons sits from 9.30 a.m. through to 3 p.m., rising early in order to allow MPs to return to their constituencies for the weekend, where they must make themselves available and accessible for local matters, complaints and attendance at formal functions. The proceedings of Parliament are public, and space is available for a small number of people, especially the press, to listen.

The manner in which business is conducted is the result of custom and precedent, from which have emerged ‘standing orders’ which govern the details of practice in each House.

Each day begins, after brief opening formalities, with Question Time, lasting approximately an hour. MPs are able to ask ministers or other MPs questions on any point they may choose. On two afternoons each week the Prime Minister will answer questions on general policy matters. After the question time, the main debate of the day takes place.

The process of passing a bill is similar in both Houses. Its publication in printed form is announced in the chamber, and this announcement is called its ‘first reading’. Its ‘second reading’, usually a few weeks later, is the occasion for a full debate in the House, unless there is general assent that a debate is unnecessary. If necessary the bill is passed to a committee which considers whether amendments would be desirable in the light of MPs’ criticisms or concerns. At the ‘third reading’ the revised bill is considered in its final form, and a vote taken if necessary. The bill then passes through the Lords in a similar fashion. Once a bill has completed its parliamentary procedures, it is sent to the Queen for royal assent, by which it passes into law as an Act of Parliament. Royal assent has not been refused since 1707.

3. There are 650 members in the House of Commons. There are only seats in the Commons debating chamber for 370 members, but except on matters of great interest, it is unusual for all members to be present at any one time. Many MPs find themselves in other rooms of the Commons, participating in a variety of committees and meetings necessary for an effective parliamentary process.

The shape of the Commons debating chamber makes an important comment on the political process in Britain. Unlike many European chambers which are semicircular, thus reflecting the spectrum of political opinion in their seating plan, the Commons is rectangular, with the Speaker’s (the Presiding MP) chair at one end, and either side of it five rows of benches running the length of the chamber. On one side, to the Speaker’s right, sits Her Majesty’s Government and its supporters, and on the other Her Majesty’s Opposition, composed of all Members who oppose the government. The front benches on either side are reserved for members of the Cabinet and other Ministers, and Opposition spokesmen, known as the ‘Shadow Cabinet’, respectively.

Behind them sit MPs from their own party, known as ‘backbenchers’. The layout implies two features of British political life: that it has traditionally been a two-party system and that the process is essentially adversarial (indeed, a red line on the floor in front of each front bench still marks the limit – a little more than two swords’ lengths – beyond which a Member may not approach the opposite benches).

The Speaker is chosen by a vote of the entire House, although in practice the party leaders consult their supporters in order to achieve informal agreement beforehand. The Speaker is responsible for the orderly conduct of business, and is required to act with scrupulous impartiality between Members in the House.

Unlike peers, who can only claim expenses, MPs are paid salaries, approximately twice the average national wage, but substantially less than most MPs could earn outside the Commons.

4. There may be other constitutional monarchs around the world, but nowhere is there anything quite like the upper Chamber of the British Parliament, the House of Lords. In fact, it is difficult to talk about it in present tense, as it is in the process of being radically changed. In the 1997 election, part of Labour’s manifesto was a promise to reform it - hardly surprising if one looks at the extraordinary nature of the House of Lords before these reforms began.

The function of the upper Chamber is to act as a brake on the government of the day. Its members take a long, cool look at new legislation prepared by the Commons. They discuss it, revise it and sometimes send it back to be reconsidered. Their power has for a long time been very limited. Even before the 20^th century it was accepted that the Commons was the real seat of power; but from time to time the Lords tried to take control.

The problem was that the permanent Conservative majority in the Lords opposed the Commons when it was in the hands of its enemies, the Liberals. In 1909, the Liberals tried to introduce a radical People’s Budget increasing taxes and benefits. The House of Lords did its best to stop the budget going through, and the Commons lost its patience. A law was passed to limit the powers of the upper Chamber: the Parliament Act of 1911. From then on, the House of Lords could only delay new laws for a fixed period, and it could not alter budgets (normally the most important of government measures).

The problem of the Conservative majority did not, however, go away. It was still the main reason for Tony Blair's promise to reform the Lords in 1997. The origin of this built-in, permanent Conservative majority was the bizarre and medieval composition of the House of Lords. Most members were from the ancient aristocracy: dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons. These are hereditary titles, like the monarchy, passed on from father to son through the generations.

In recent years, it has been the practice to create new lords, known as life peers. Senior politicians such as ex-Prime Ministers, and other important public figures were given titles (for example, Baroness Thatcher) and a seat in the House of Lords. But the relics of feudalism were still in the majority; and they were joined by many more Conservatives among the life peers. In the 1990s, the Lords consisted of about 750 hereditary peers, 26 bishops of the Church of England, nine senior judges and about 500 life peers. You can see from the figures that another problem was the size of the membership; luckily, only a small proportion of them ever came in to work. The future of the House of Lords could be included in a new written constitution.

Following the House of Lords Act 1999 there are only 92 peers who sit by virtue of hereditary peerage. The majority of members are now life peers and the Government has been consulting on proposals and attempting to legislate for further reform of the Lords.

There were 751 peers in total on 1st November 2006.