UO Constitutional Law Parliament Notes

Week Two: Parliament


Introduction by Leyland

Roles of Parliament:
 Law-making
 Levying of taxation
 Control of national expenditure
 Keeping checks on executive

History: King’s advisors made up of land-owning aristocracy and important members of the church

First job of Prime Minister: select a govern ment comprised of MPs elected to House of Commons or
peers from the House of Lords

House of Commons
 Consists of 650 elected MPs each from a different constituency
 The MPs there, debate, vote on legislations, and serve on parliamentary committees
 They select a speaker to preside

Parliamentary Privilege:
 Legal privileges given to Parliament to allow it to conduct its constitutional role without
Interference from the Crown or from the courts (enforced by Parliament- not courts BUT they
can sometimes help)
 Examples:
o Freedom of speech
o Freedom from arrest
o Right of the Houses to regulate their own composition and procedures
o Right of Houses to enforce their privileges and where necessary take punitive action
when they are breached
 They amount to a source of constitutional law on their own (not statute- EXCEPT Article 9 of
Bill of Rights)
 What is said in Parliament cannot be the subject of defamation actions or prosecution in the
courts
 Parliament must discipline cases of abuse of privilege by MPs
 The MPs cannot vote to remove an MPs immunity (Gay and Tomlinson)
 Only MPs from the Commons not the Lords can use the defamation waiver- “Parliamentary
Privilege exists to protect MPs from libel and victimization by the Crown but it is now getting
in the way of justice” (Gay and Tomlinson)
 Constituency correspondence only has qualified privilege (ie case by case basis)

Article 9 Bill of Rights:
 Protects anyone who participates in Parliament proceedings (eg even witnesses giving
evidence to a committee)
 History: in 1629 Elliot, Holles and Valentine were convicted by the Court of King’s Bench for
seditious words spoken in the commons criticizing the King’s government

Composition of the House of Lords
 92 hereditary peers left with right to vote (After House of Lords Act 1999)

,  Appointed life peers who are influential people, either politicians or ex- admirals, academics,
civil servants, scientists etc (good for debate)
 Constitutional Reform Act 2005 created UK Supreme Court and removed Lord Chancellor as
highest judge along with other serving judges in HoL
 213 in 2016 were women
 All of Lords at some point claim allegiance to a political party
 Right now: 557 life peers, 92 hereditary peers, 27 law lord and 26 bishops

Should Lords be elected?
 No: might lead to second chamber asserting its authority and acting as a competitor to the
House of Commons  his would delay legislation and disrupt the process of government
 No: elected second chamber might duplicate political tribalism as Lords are not acting
independently but are influenced by other politicians in the Commons (Lords are there for life
and don’t have to worry about re-election)
 No: second chamber undermined if government holds majority in both Houses (same in
Ireland, Spain and Italy)

Other suggestions
o Second chamber acting as an elected senate of regions
o (White Paper)
 Some elected and some appointed
 Appointments by independent commission operating under statutory guidelines
 Some nominated by political parties

Law making
 Public- Government Bills
o Government proposes Bills (mostly best on what it promised to the people) to either the
House of Commons or Lords
o First Reading: simply the announcement of the publication of the Bill
o Second Reading: debate of the main principles of the Bill (if a Bill is opposed in the second
reading there can be amendments to it but it is considered a great political defeat)
o Voting
o Public committee reviews Bill and its clauses (criticized for not being experts and need a
check-lists to not miss important things- eg human rights implications)
 Private- Members’ Bills
o Same procedure IF 100 members agree to go to second reading and the government
allocated sufficient time for debate in Parliament
o Unlike public Bills, these are introduced to grant benefits or impose obligations on a
specifically defined class or persons or company or public body
 Primary legislation: what parliament passes
 Secondary legislation: delegated legislation by the executive
Scrutiny

1. Parliamentary questions
 Backbenchers can interrogate the executive (ie PM and the ministers) and they are
obliged to answer questions that will be available to the public
 Example: Thatcher on the sinking of Argentinian warship that was moving away from
British forces and not towards them during the Falklands conflict
 Limitations:
 questions chosen randomly and not based on importance
 limited time (60 minutes a day)