Parliament Flashcards
What is the structure of Parliament?
Consists of the Commons, Lords and Monarch
What is the Monarch’s role in Parliament?
Signing Bills to become Acts
Makes speeches once a year to announce session’s legislation (written by gov’t)
Is Parliament bicameral or unicameral?
Bicameral
Commons and Lords
What is the structure of the Commons?
650 MPs are elected, 1 for each constituency
Independant MPs exist but are rare
MPs are divided into members of the governing party (right of the speaker) and opposition parties
MPs are also divided into frontbench and backbench
Party whips for each party keep order
How do MPs elect a Speaker?
After elections, MPs elect a speaker
- continues to represent constituency but stops acting in a ‘party political’ way
- Currently Sir Lindsay Hoyle (formerly Labour)
2024 Election: what are the number of MPs per party in the Commons?
412 Lab
121 Con
72 Lib Dem
9 SNP
29 Other
How does someone become an MP?
They join a party, get selected as prospective parliamentary candidate for constituency by party local activists, beat rival PPC’s in election (ensure not to annoy local party activists with campaign so much they deselect you)
What is the structure of the Lords?
2024: 805 members
What is the history of the Lords?
1911- lowered delaying period to 2 years
1949- lowered delaying period to 1 years
1958- Life Peerages Act, introduced appointment of life peers
1999- Blair removed all but 91 hereditary peers
2024- Starmer removed all remaining hereditary peers
Who are the Lords Spiritual?
26 top CofE Bishops including the Archbishop of Canterbury
What is the status of other religious leaders (not Anglican) in the Lords?
Leaders of other faiths (ie Muslim, Hindu, Jewish) can become life peers but have no official status
What are the 2 ways life peers can be appointed?
- PM has certain allocations for members of the party if they no longer have their seat
ie Boris Johnson recommended former loyalist Minister Nadine Dorries, overruled by appointment commission 2023 as she didn’t resign her Commons seat in time - Lords Appointment Commission appoints non party political peers ie Scientists to maintain number of crossbenchers
What is an example of any PM can fill the Lords with people with little merit, also often party donors.
PM has certain allocations to recommend peerages for members of the party if they no longer have their seat
How is party balance in the Lords
There is no firm rules on party balance
- example of uncodified constitution
But convention since 1999 that parties nominate to reflect the Commons’ strength (ie Labour elected 2024, so they nominated more Lab peers)
Large number of crossbenchers ensure governing party won’t have overall majority
How often are Lords Speakers elected?
Every 5 years
Currently Lord John McFall
What happened in 1265?
Monarch calls first parliament because needs consent for tax
- Aristocrats sit in Lords chamber
- Richest commoners in each county sit in the Commons
What happened between 1642-9?
Civil War
- Parliamentarians unhappy that Charles I sent soldiers to arrest some commoners
What happened in 1689?
Bill of Rights
- establishes parliamentary sovereignty from Monarchs
- Commons and Lords roughly equal power to legislate
- Ministers and PMs often from Lords
What happened during the 19th Century Industrial Revolution?
Increased demands for the vote to be extended (for Commons), gradually making Commons more powerful/legitimate compared to Lords
- Last PM from Lords is Salisbury in 1901
What happened in 1911?
Parliamentary Act
- Liberal gov’t reduces Lords power over money bills
- Reduces veto to delaying power of 2 years
What happened in 1949 Parliamentary Act?
Labour gov’t reduces delaying power to 1 year
What happens in 2005 Constitutional Reform Act?
Top judges known as ‘law lords’ moved out of Lords into independent Supreme Court
What are the 3 functions of Parliament?
Represent
Legislate
Scrutinise
Why is Representation important?
Essential parliament represents voters effectively
What are the 3 forms of representation?
Constituency Representation (Commons)
Group Representation
Social Representation
What is Constituency Representation?
Job of MP to represent interests of all constituents regardless of whether they voted for them
- Lords cannot represent this way because it is unelected
What is Group Representation in the Commons?
MPs will often represent interests relating to a previous job (ie trade unionist)
- Pressure groups conduct letter writing campaigns to persuade MPs
- MPs form ‘all party’ parliamentary groups ie on Islamaphobia
How does FPTP negatively effect group representation in the Commons?
Parties form as a group, but FPTP means MPs don’t rep as accurately as they should
- Ie 2019 election Cons won 43.6% of vote by 56.1% seats
What is Group Representation in the Lords?
Lords have more time to represent groups because they don’t have constituency work
- rep groups more effectively because so many are independent-> Party line/whipping is weaker
How is group representation ineffective in the Lords?
Party representation is patchy
- takes time for governing party to reflect numbers of the Commons in the Lords
- ie 5 UKIP MPs in Lords before 2019 (only 1 UKIP MP), but not enough SNP peers
What is Social Representation and what are the issues of trying to match the social make up of the country?
Some argue Parl should represent social make up of country. (Problem in measuring social class Parl only collects stats of whether privately educated.)
What are the Commons representation stats in 2019?
Women 34% (3% 1979!)
Av age 50
Ethnic minority 10% (15% in pop)
LGBTQ+ 7%
Privately educated Cons 44% Lab 19% (7% pop)
What are the Lords representation stats from 2019?
Women 28%
Av age 71 (big fuss about appointee Boris Johnson, called Charlotte Owen aged 30)
Ethnic minority 6%
Privately educated 60%
What is the main function of Parliament?
Legislative function
Why is the Legislative function the main function of parliament?
Democracies must be based on popular consent. Because there is no direct democracy voters indicate support for manifesto which parliament must then put into law. One of the most important laws is the annual budget authorising the gov’t to tax and spend (Monarch not doing this caused civil war).
What are the 3 types of legislative processes?
1.Private: by external orgs eg a church (not important)
2.Private Members’ Bills by individual MPs; important but rare unless gov’t provides time to support, which they may do if it’s a controversial conscience issue they do not want to get involved with, eg 1967 David Steel’s Abortion Act. 2017-19 15 PMBs passed: egs Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019 and one on process EU Withdrawal to prevent No Deal Brexit (Yvette Cooper)
3.Public Bills intro by gov’t (vast majority of bills).
What are the stages to pass a bill?
White Paper and/or draft Bill
Formal process usually starts in Commons with First reading (title), Second reading (big debate) Committee stage (line by line scrutiny and amendment), Report stage (back on floor of Commons), Third reading final debate.
Repeat process in Lords.
If Lords amends Commons has to consider, could lead to ‘ping pong’.
When both houses agree Monarch signs (‘royal assent’ – not refused since 1708), Bill becomes Act.
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