23 - Role of Parliament Flashcards
What is Parliament?
Parliament is the legislative branch of the political system in the UK.
How is Parliament made up?
Parliament is composed of three parts:
The Monarch- House of Lords- House of Commons
The Monarch
Technically, the monarch has the final say as to whether a bill can pass into law by giving it royal assent, after which the bill becomes an Act of Parliament.
However, no monarch has declined to give the royal assent to a bill since Queen Anne, who died in 1714.
This is because Parliament is viewed as following the will of the people so the Monarch would be wise not to interfere with the will of the people
House of Commons
It is the House of Commons that has the greatest influence.
It is where every prime minister of the past century has sat and over 90% of all ministers are drawn from it.
House of Commons
What are the powers of the House of Commons?
Supreme legislative powers
Can remove the government of the day
Parliamentary sovereignty (also called parliamentary supremacy or legislative supremacy) is a concept in the constitutional law of some democracies.
It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty, and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies.
The concept also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation, and so that it is not bound by written law (in some cases, even a constitution) or by precedent.
Parliamentary sovereignty may be contrasted with the doctrines of separation of powers, which limits the legislature’s scope often to general law-making, and judicial review, where laws passed by the legislature may be declared invalid in certain circumstances.
Many states have sovereign legislatures, among which are the Uk, Finland, New Zealand , Israel, Jamaica and others.
House of Commons
What is the composition of the House of Lords?
650 MPs (one for 92,000 people or 68,000 parliamentary electors)
Single-member parliamentary constituencies using ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system
MP = almost always representative of a party
Subject to party discipline
There were plans to shrink the size of the Commons from its current 650-strong membership by changing the constituency boundaries to make all seats roughly the same size.
This was one of the coalition government’s key proposals for reform of Parliament after the expenses scandal to lower the “cost of politics” without reducing accountability but was dropped in 2012.
House of Lords
What is the composition of the House of Lords?
746 current members of the House of Lords
The House of Lords had 1,144 members until 1999, when 666 hereditary peers - people who have inherited their title - lost the automatic right to sit and vote in Parliament after reforms.
This left 92 hereditary peers remaining in the upper chamber.
But they could eventually lose their right to be a peer in fresh round of reforms in the near future.
Bishops and other churchmen and women account for 26 peers sitting in the Lords.
3 types of peers – none are elected:
Life peers – appointed by PM
Hereditary peers – people who inherited their titles
‘Lords Spiritual’ – bishops, archbishops
House of Lords
What are the powers of the House of Lords?
Delay bills by up to one year although, as was seen on the issue of hunting with dogs, parliamentary devices exist to enable the House of Commons to get its own way.
The power of the House of Lords was such that any bill passed in the House of Commons could be defeated and therefore rejected in the House of Lords. This meant that on occasions the Commons had to adjust a bill so that it was acceptable to the Lords and would therefore be passed. However, with society rapidly changing at the start of the Twentieth Century, it was only a matter of time before a clash occurred between both Houses.
This clash came in 1909. The Lords refused to pass the budget prepared by David Lloyd George, Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. This so-called ‘People’s Budget’ had been touted as a mainstay of what was to become the Welfare State. There were many in the Liberal Party – who had won an overwhelming victory in the 1906 General election– who saw the Lords as peers who simply abused their power and privilege. Over the next two years a campaign was started to reduce the power of the Lords.
This culminated with the 1911 Parliament Act. The Lords still had the right to scrutinise bills passed by the Commons but they could no longer kill off a bill. The Lords could only reject a bill three times within one year. After this it became law. The 1949 Parliament Act ended the right of the Lords to stop any ‘money bills’.
House of Lords
General
The Lords is a deliberative and revising chamber.
1958 – Women were allowed to sit in the Lords
Most members of the House of Lords are appointed by the Prime Minister and described as life peers.
A certain number of nominations from the leader of the opposition are also accepted.
Until 2014, it was not possible to be kicked outfrom the House of Lords - nor was it possible to resign.
But reforms put in place that year have made both these things possible.
Since then 56 peers have resigned and four have been excluded
