Parliament - Functions & Features

Question 1

What are the 2 key functions of Parliament?

Answer 1

1. to scrutinise Government
2. to consider and pass legislation (bills)

Question 2

Who are the Government and Opposition?

Answer 2

• Government: steers legislation through
• Opposition: required to throw light on any mismanagement from the government and offer an alternative government in waiting to replace it

Question 3

• What does ‘calling’ mean?
• What does it result in?

Answer 3

• monarch will ‘call’ a Parliament following an election & after determining that a Government can be formed
• results in the State Opening of Parliament

Question 4

What does ‘prorogation’ mean?
What is a parliamentary session?

Answer 4

• the act of bringing a session to an end
• a session is usually a calendar year of parliamentary business (they can be longer e.g. 2017-2019 session)
• each session is followed by a State Opening of Parliament and a King’s Speech outlining the Government’s legislative programme

Question 5

What does ‘dissolution’ mean?

Answer 5

• the King dissolves Parliament
• fixes a polling date for a general election
• This ends the previous Parliament, where prorogation merely suspends it

Question 6

What does bicameral mean?

Answer 6

• 2 chambers: a lower (Commons) and an upper (Lords) House

Question 7

What does the House of Commons enjoy?

Answer 7

• primacy
• have always had it in financial matters (taxation / ‘supply’)

Question 8

Is Parliament deliberative or executive?

Answer 8

deliberative

Question 9

What did Edmund Burke say about Parliament?
- In what work?

Answer 9

• “Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation”
• Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1774

Question 10

What did J. S. Mill say about Parliament?
- In what work?

Answer 10

• argues that the Commons is ‘radically unfit’ for governing; its role is to watch and control the government
• On Representative Government (1861)

Question 11

What did Bagehot say about Parliament?
- In what work?

Answer 11

• describes various functions for Parliament:
  
  • Elective / Expressive / Teaching / Informing / Legislating
• The English Constitution (1867)

Question 12

Why is Parliament considered self-regulating?

Answer 12

regulates its own procedure through Standing Orders in the Commons and the Lords

Question 13

What are the ‘privileges of Parliament’? (4)

Answer 13

• freedom of speech
  
  • proceedings in Parliament cannot be questioned in any court or other place out of Parliament
  • R v Chaytor [2010]
  • Miller II → the prorogation case
• freedom from arrest
• has penal powers: to punish for contempt
• unusual to detail parliamentary procedure through statutes