Reading Text a. The State System of Great Britain

1.Read and translate the text using the dictionary.

Great Britain is a parliamentary monarchy.

The bodies of British Government are the legislative, executive, judiciary.

At the head of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the King or, as at present, the Queen. But her power is not absolute. It is said that the Queen (King) reigns but doesn’t rule. She acts only on the advice of the ministers and Parliament. As head of the state the Queen reads the speech from the throne with which a new Parliamentary session is opened.

The legislature consists of the King or Queen and the two Houses of Parliament: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Lords consists of 1000 peers (among there are the Lords ‘Spiritual and Temporal’) who are not elected by people. The Lords Spiritual are the two archbishops (Canterbury and York) and 24 bishops of the Church of England. The Lord Temporal included peers by hereditary right. But from October 1999 the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords was abolished. During most sessions the House of Lords sits on about 140 days. The work of the House of Lords includes examining and revising bills from the House of Commons and discussing important matters which the Commons cannot find time to debate. The Speaker of the House of Lords who is usually a member of the Cabinet is the Lord Chancellor. The special seat on which the Lord Chancellor sits in the British Parliament is called the woolsack. The House of Lords has an important legal function in addition to its parliamentary work. It is the final court of appeal for civil cases in the whole of Britain, and for criminal cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The House of Commons is an executive branch of the power and a nation-wide representative body. It is elected by a universal adult suffrage at a general election, within 5 years of the last election (now there are 659 elected members). Members of Parliament (MPs) are granted a salary for their parliamentary work. The extreme duration of the House of Commons is fixed at 5 years. The average number of sitting days in the House of Commons is about 175 days. Parliament deals with imposition of taxes, granting supplies, all matters concerning elections and other important questions.

Parliament in Great Britain has existed since 1265 and is the eldest Parliament in the world. 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 or her party to become the Cabinet of Ministers. Each minister is responsible for a particular area of the government. The Prime Minister informs the Queen of the general business of the Government, presides over the Cabinet. Cabinet is the real instrument of the Government. It runs the national affairs, control important government decisions, though the Prime Minister’s decision is final.

The second largest party becomes the official opposition with its own leader and ‘Shadow Cabinet’. Leader of the Opposition is a recognized post in the House of Commons. The official title of the Opposition is Her or His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

There is no written constitution in Great Britain. The main principles of British legislation are expressed in other documents, like “Magna Charta”, “Habeas Corpus Act”, “Bill of Rights”, the Parliamentary Act which decided the position of the House of Lords, and the Judicature Act. British legislation does not provide written guarantees of individual political rights.

The term ‘English Constitution’ means the leading principles, conventions, laws which are modified to suit the circumstances. 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, its examination by a parliamentary committee, and the third reading - a report stage, when the work of the committee is reported on to the House. This is usually the most important stage in the process. If the majority of MPs still vote for the bill, it is sent to the House of Lords for discussion. When the Lords agree, the bill is taken to the Queen for royal assent. All bills must pass through both houses before being sent for signature by the Queen, when they become Acts of Parliament and the Law of the Land.

2.Make up the questions of different types on the text.

3.Compare the State System of Ukraine with that of Great Britain. Complete the table.

Ukraine	Great Britain
Presidential republic	parliamentary monarchy
……..	………