Parliament. The Palace Of Westminster

Britain is administered from the Palace of Westminster in London. This is also known as the Houses of Parlia­ment. Parliament is made up of two chambers — the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The members of the House of Lords are not elected: they qualify to sit in the House because they are bishops of the Church of England, aristocrats who have inherited their seats from their fathers, people with titles. There has been talk of reform in this century because many Britons think that this system is undemocratic. The House of Commons, by contrast, has 651 seats which are occupied by Members of Parliament (MPs) who are elected by the British public. The United King­dom is divided into constituencies, each of which has an elected MP in the House of Commons.

Each of the major political parties appoints a representative (candidate) to compete for each seat. Smaller parties may have a candidate in only a few constituencies. There may be five or more parties, fighting for one seat, but only one person — the candidate who gets the greatest number of votes — can win. Some parties win a lot of seats and some win very few, or none at all.

The Queen, who is the Head of State, opens and closes Parliament. All new laws are debated (discussed) by MPs in the Commons, then debated in the Lords, and finally signed by the Queen. All three are part of Parliament in Britain.

The British Parliament

The UK Parliament is one of the oldest representative assemblies in the world, having its origins in the middle of the 13th century. From the 14th century, parliamentary government in the United Kingdom has been based on a two-chamber system. The House of Lords (the upper house) and the House of Commons (the lower house) sit separate­ly and are constituted on entirely different principles. The relationship between the two Houses is governed largely by convention but is in part defined by the Parliament Acts. The legislative process involves both Houses of Parlia­ment and the Monarch.

In the beginning, Great Britain was an absolute monarchy, but in the 17th century, tensions increased between parliament and monarch. Civil War broke out the following year, leading to the execution of King Charles 1 in January 1649. Following the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the role of parliament was enhanced by the events of 1688-89 (the 'Glorious Revolution') which established the authority of Parliament over the King. The state political system became to be Parliament monarchy. Nowadays the Monarch is no more but a symbol and tradition of the nation.

The British Parliament consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and the Queen.

Today the House of Commons plays the major role in law-making. It consists of Members of Parliament. Each of them represents an area in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Members of Parliament are elected either at a general election or at a by-election following the death or retirement of one of them. Parliament has a maximum duration of five years. At any time up to the end of this period, a general election can be held for a new House of Commons and it is the Prime Minister who decides on the exact day of the election. The minimum voting age is 18. The election campaign lasts about three weeks; the British parliamentary system depends on political parties. The party which wins the majority of seats forms the government and its leader usually becomes Prime Minister. The Prime Minister chooses about 20 MPs from his party to become the cabinet of ministers. Each minister is responsible for a particular area in the government. The second largest party becomes the official opposition with its own leader and «shadow cabinet». The leader of the opposition is a recognized post in the House of Commons. The parliament and the monarch have different roles in the government and they only meet together on symbolic occasions, such as corona­tion of a new monarch or the opening of the parliament. In reality, the House of Commons is the one of three which has true power.

The House of Commons is made up of six hundred and fifty elected members, it is presided over by the speaker, a member acceptable to the whole house. MPs sit on two sides of the hall, one side for the governing party and the other for the opposition. The first two rows of seats are occupied by the leading members of both parties. Each session of the House of Commons lasts for 160-175 days. MPs are paid for their parliamentary work and have to attend the sittings. As mentioned above, the House of Commons plays the major role in law making. The procedure is the following: a proposed law («a bill») has to go through three stages in order to become an act of parliament; these are called «readings». The first reading is a formality and is simply the publication of the proposal. The second reading .involves debate on the principles of the bill. And the third reading is a report stage. This is usually the most important stage in the process. When the bill passes through the House of Commons, it is sent to the House of Lords for discussion, when the Lords agree it, the bill is taken to the Queen for royal assent, when the Queen signs the bill, it becomes act of the Parliament and the Law of the Land.

The House of Lords has more than 1000 members, although only about 250 take an active part in the work of the house. Members of this Upper House are not elected, they sit there because of their rank and the chairman of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor. And he sits on a special seat, called «Woolsack». It is another tradition of Great Britain. The members of the House of Lords debate the bill after it has been passed by the House of Commons. Some changes may be recommended and the agreement between the two houses is reached by negotiations.

The House of Commons

The House of Commons is the centre of parliamentary power. It is directly responsible to the electorate, and from the 20th century the House of Lords has recognized the supremacy of the elected chamber. The House of Commons is traditionally regarded as the lower house, but it is the main parliamentary arena for political battle. A Govern­ment can only remain in office for as long as it has the support of a majority in the House of Commons.

In 1275 Edward I called a meeting of Parliament. Edward invited representatives from every shire and town in England. These men were elected as representatives by the people living in the locality. When the representatives arrived they met in five different groups: the first group was the prelates, which consisted of bishops and abbots; the second were the magnates, consisted of earls and barons; the third one was the inferior clergy; the fourth was the knights from the shires; and the last group were the citizens from the towns.

At these meetings Edward explained about his need for money. Eventually the representatives agreed that people should pay the king a tax that amounted to a fifteenth of all their movable property. It was also agreed that a custom duty should be paid on every sack of wool exported. This agreement about taxes was accepted. The repre­sentatives then had the job of persuading the people in their area to pay these taxes. The king then discussed issues such as new laws with his bishops, abbots, earls and barons (the lords).

After this date, whenever the king needed money, he called another Parliament. In 1430 an Act of Parliament divided constituencies (voting districts) into two groups: counties and boroughs. Only males who owned property worth 40 shillings were allowed to vote in county constituencies. One had to be fairly wealthy to be a MP (Member of Parliament).

In the 15th Century, the Commons gained equal law-making powers with the Lords, under King Henry V. Whereas Parliament stipulated who should vote in county constituencies, each town was allowed to decide for itself how its MPs should be selected. Voting qualifications varied enormously. For example, in Preston every man over the age of 21 could vote. However, in most boroughs only a small number were allowed to take part in elections. In some constituencies, MPs were elected by less than ten people.

Henry VIII enhanced the importance of Parliament during the English Reformation.

In the 15th century the House of Lords was the Upper House and the House of Commons the Lower House. However, since that date, the balance of power has shifted in favour of the Commons.

1707 brought the Union with Scotland and the first Parliament of Great Britain. After the Act of Union in 1800 the number of members in the House of Commons increased from 558 to 658. There were 465 MPs from England, 48 from Wales, 45 from Scotland and 100 from Ireland. This created problems of space as St. Stephen's Chapel only had 427.seats.

In 1834 the chapel and most of the Old Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire. The new Palace of West­minster was designed. The seats to the right of the Speaker's Chair are traditionally used by the Government and its supporters, and those to the left are used by the opposition and other parties. Senior members of the Govern­ment and the Opposition sit on the front benchers. The gangway separating them is known as the Floor of the House, which was designed to be «two sword lengths apart». The House of Commons meets from Monday to Thursday from 2.30 pm. till 10.30 pm. and on Fridays from 9.30 am to 3.00 pm. However, sometimes debates went on all night.

The legislative primacy of the House of Commons over the Lords was confirmed in the 20th Century by the pas­sing of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949.

The House of Lords

The House of Lords is the second chamber of the U.K. Houses of Parliament. Members of the House of Lords are also known as 'peers' and consist of Lords Spiritual (senior bishops) and Lords Temporal (lay peers). Law Lords (senior judges) also sit as Lords Temporal. Members of the House of Lords are not elected.

In general, the functions of the House of Lords are similar to those of the House of Commons. There are two important exceptions: members of the Lords do not represent constituencies and are not involved in matters of taxation and finance. The role of the Lords is generally recognized to be complementary to that of the Commons and it acts as a revising chamber for many of the more important and controversial bills. All bills go through both Houses before becoming Acts, and may start in either House.

The House of Lords is also the final court of appeal for civil cases in the United Kingdom and for criminal cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Only the Lords of Appeal (Law Lords) — of whom there are 12 employed full-time — take part in judicial proceedings.

The Speakership of the House of Lords has traditionally been performed by the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor's powers as Speaker have been very limited compared with those of the Speaker of the House of Commons

Following the House of Lords Act 1999, there are only 92 peers. The majority of members are now life peers and the Government has been consulting on proposals for further reform of the Lords.

There were 689 peers in total in 2003. Members of the House of Lords, as I said before, are not elected and, with the exception of bishops who leave the House on retirement, they retain their seats for life.