Answer the following questions

1. Where are the Houses of Parliament situated?

2. What is another name for them?

3. When were the present Houses of Parliament built and why?

4. What are the two Chambers in Parliament?

5. What is the present role of Mr. Speaker and what was it in the past?

6. Where do visitors to the House of Commons sit?

7. When is Parliament actually in session?

8. What signs are there which indicate when Parliament is sitting?

The British Houses of Parliament

The House of Commons meets every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and Thursday at 2.30 p.m. Normally it sits until 10.30 p.m. although sometimes the debates continue until well after midnight.

The life of Parliament is divided into periods called sessions. At the end of every session Parliament is prorogued; this means that all business which has not completed is abandoned, and Parliament does not meet again until it is formally summoned by the Monarch.

The beginning of a new session is marked by the State Opening of Parliament. This ceremony takes place in the House of Lords, with a few members of the Commons crowded together at the far end of the Lord's Chamber. The Monarch reads the Speech, which is a document, prepared by the Government. In this speech the Government gives a summary of the things which it intends to do during the Session which is about to begin. A debate on particular aspects of the Monarch's speech follows, usually lasting five or six days. When the debates on the Speech are finished, Parliament begins with the work of the session.

The British Parliament is often referred to as the Legislature – the body which makes laws. New laws can only come into force when they have passed through Parliament and got the Royal Assent. A proposal for a new law is known as a bill. Most bills, and nearly all important bills, are introduced by the government about fifty bills are passed each year. Every bill brought in by the Government has been approved first by the Cabinet.

Once the Government has decided to introduce a bill, one minister is put in charge of it. The preparation of the text often takes many months, with long consultations involving civil servants in the minister's department and with the parliamentary Counsel.

Correct the false sentences

1. The Queen opens a session of Parliament with a speech.

2. The State Opening of Parliament takes place in the House of Commons.

3. The House of Lords prepares the Monarch's speech.

4. The government introduces about fifty bills every year.

Reading 7

The House of Lords

There may be other constitutional monarchs around the world, but nowhere is there is anything quite like the upper Chamber of the British Parliament, the House of Lords. In fact, it is difficult to talk about it in the present tense, as it is in the process of being radically changed. In the 1997 election, part of Labour's manifesto was a promise to reform it – hardly surprising if you look at the extraordinary nature of the House of Lords before these reforms began.

The function of the upper Chamber is to act as a brake on the government of the day. Its members take a long, cool look at new legislation prepared by the Commons. They discuss it, revise it and sometimes send it back to be reconsidered. Their power has for a long time been very limited. Even before the 20^th century it was accepted that the Commons was the real seat of power; but from time to time the Lords tried to take control.

The problem was that the permanent Conservative majority in the Lords opposed the Commons when it was in the hands of its enemies, the Liberals. In 1909, the Liberals tried to introduce a radical People's Budget increasing taxes and benefits. The House of Lords did its best to stop the budget going through, and the Commons lost its patience. A law was passed to limit the powers of the upper Chamber: the Parliament Act of 1911. From then on, it could only delay new laws for a fixed period, and it could not alter budgets (normally the most important of government measures).

The problem of the Conservative majority did not, however, go away. It was still the main reason for Tony Blair's promise to reform the Lords in 1997. The origin of this built-in, permanent Conservative majority was the bizarre and medieval composition of the House of Lords. Most members were from the ancient aristocracy: dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons. These are hereditary titles, like the monarchy, passed on from father to son through the generations.

In recent years, it has been the practice to create new lords, known as life peers, Senior politicians such as ex-Prime Ministers, and other important public figures were given titles (for example, Baroness Thatcher) and a seat in the House of Lords. But the relics of feudalism were joined by many more Conservatives among the life peers. In the 1990s, the Lords consisted of about 750 hereditary peers, 26 bishops of the Church of England, nine senior judges and about 500 life peers. You can see form the figures that another problem was the size of the membership; luckily, only a small proportion of them ever came in to work.

Discussion

- Does your country's parliament have a second Chamber? What is its function?

- What is wrong with hereditary power?

House of Lords

The House of Lords consists of about 900 members, but the largest class – about 800 of a total of nearly 900 – is that of the Hereditary Peers. The other classes of Members of the House of Lords are quite small. They are:

a) the bishops of the Church of England;

b) the nine Law Lords. The House of Lords is still the Supreme Court of Appeal;

c) the new life peers created under the Life Peerages Act of 1958;

d) the sixteen Scottish representative peers.

Of the total of 900 members there are only a small number of members who attend the House of Lords regularly. Those who attend rarely are sometimes known as «backwoodsmen.»

Only in the 14^th century after the gradual formation of a separate Commons body, the House of Lords took definite shape. At that time its members were predominantly Lords Spiritual (Abbots and Bishops), Earls and Barons numbered only about 50. The Reformation did away with the Abbots and the Abbeys, at the same time increasing the powers of the Lords Secular. No House of Lords met for 10 years after the Civil war. Toward the end of the 18^th century the numerical strength of the Lords was greatly increased, by the creation of a large body of new peers from among wealthy landowners, merchants and industrialists.

The House of Lords no longer has the power it once had of rejecting altogether measures passed by the House of Commons. The 1911 Parliament Act provided that the Lords could not reject a measure passed three times by the Commons – they could only hold it up for a maximum period of two years by the process of proposing amendments.

Correct the false sentences

1. The largest class in the House of Lords is that of Hereditary Peers.

2. There are five other classes of members in the Lords.

3. The House of Lords took its definite shape only in the 18^th century.

4. The Lords has the power to reject any measures taken by the Commons.

Reading 8

A New Constitution

The future of the House of Lords could be included in a new written constitution which would deal with all sorts of problems in one go; for example, the status of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the problem of the voting system. Now might be a good time to abolish or at least reform the monarchy, which has lost much of its popular support. The question of Britain's relations with the EU also needs to be resolved.

Also, there is a fundamental point missing from Britain's unwritten constitution – human rights. These rights only exist in a sort of negative form at present; you can do whatever you like if it is not against the law. In the Thatcher era some very basic rights seemed to be under threat; for example, unions were banned at GCHQ, the government's electronic spy center, and in 1984-5 the police were used as a political force against striking miners.

In 1988, a group called Charter 88 started a campaign for a written constitution, while others demanded a Bill of Rights and a Freedom of Information Act. At the beginning of the new millennium, the Labour Government was considering legislation on freedom of information, and was moving towards incorporating the European convention on Human Rights into British law. But the idea of a written constitution is still rather alien to the British; perhaps it would actually make it harder to reform institutions rather that easier. At present Parliament is all-powerful, and can make any constitutional change it wishes to at any time. There may be dangers in this, but it is a quick and simple system.

The EU

There is very good reason for not writing a new constitution just yet. Obviously, as EU member countries move closer to merging into a single state, all their constitutions will need rewriting; in the end perhaps they will all make do with one big constitution. Britain signed the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and some of its provisions now form part of UK law. In commercial areas, EU law has gradually replaced UK legislation; in criminal law, or civil law (divorce, libel and so on), Britain is still completely independent. It is a very complicated subject, but the general principle is clear: British law now comes under European law in those areas where treaties exist.

Local Government

For people who live in, say, Hammersmith in the west of London, the decisions of Parliament in Westminster or of the Commission in Brussels are not always that important in their everyday lives. They have a local council which runs the schools, social services, roads, parks, rubbish collection and libraries. The council also owns a lot of low-cost housing, and makes all the planning decisions for Hammersmith: where a new cinema can be built, and whether a club can verse alcohol, or have dancing. The councilors are party politicians who have won their seats in local elections. They also usually live in the borough and are known to the public, so there is a high degree of local democracy. The council is a Parliament in miniature, except that the councilors, unlike MPs in Parliament, are part-time and unpaid. This is the system in towns, cities, and rural areas throughout the country.

Relations between the local council and central government are not always good: local leaders quite rightly want some power and independence, but Parliament feels that it must have the last word. Finance is at the root of the problem: 80 per cent of the councils' money comes directly from central government (they collect the rest through a local tax). Education is the biggest responsibility of local government, and it used to be very much in their hands; but over the last 15 years central government has intervened more and more in this area. The Conservatives started weakening local government, and Labour has not reversed the process. 

Discussion

- Is there debate about human rights in your country?

- Where is your nearest local government? Are you interested in what it is doing?

Reading 9

Devolution

Devolution of power from Westminster has taken place in two very important areas: Scotland and Wales. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly came into being, and those two countries had a degree of self-rule for the first time in hundreds of years. The Scottish Parliament, as its name suggests, is the more powerful of the tow bodies, having the ability to raise taxes. This reflects the fact that nationalism in Scotland is much stronger than it is in Wales. More than 50 per cent of Scots want full independence from England (or Britain), whereas in Wales not even the nationalist party Plaid Cymru talks in such terms. 

Northern Ireland

In the case of Northern Ireland, devolution is on the political agenda, but it does not provide an easy solution to the problems. In fact, there was a devolved government there between 1921 and 1972, but it did not work out well. The Protestant majority ran the government as a sectarian regime, and discriminated against Catholics. In the end, the minority lost patience and started a civil-rights protest movement. There was violence, and Britain troops were sent in. The old IRA (Irish Republican Army), which had fought to free Ireland from the British 50 years earlier, was revived in a new form, the Provisional IRA, and started a guerrilla and terror campaign. In response, the Protestants formed their own paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Freedom Fighters. More that 3,000 people died in the resulting war, know as the Troubles.

To the great relief of all the people of Northern Ireland, a peace agreement was made on Good Friday 1998. The aim was once more to devolve government to Belfast, with power shared between the rival groups. After long negotiations, a new executive, including both Protestants and Catholics, was formed in December 1999. At the same time the IRA agreed to discuss disarmament, and the Irish Republic changed its constitution to give up its claim to the North, as part of a united Ireland.

The position of the British government on Northern Ireland has always been difficult. Many outsiders consider it a colonial power, which should withdraw completely. But if that had been attempted, there was a real fear that led to the setting up of a Northern Ireland in 1921. The British government says that it will agree to a united Ireland if a majority in Northern Ireland wants it. At present that is impossible as there is a Protestant majority, but the Catholic population is growing faster, so in the long term simple numbers may solve the problem. The economy of the Irish Republic has also been growing faster than that of Northern Ireland, so there may be an economic incentive for change.

Discussion

- Is your country very centralized, or is there devolution to regions? Which do you prefer?

- How do you think the problems of Northern Ireland could be solved?

Project work

How independent are Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland within the UK?

Find out the following:

- How are these parts represented in the British Parliament?

- How much autonomy does the Scottish Parliament have?

- What are the powers of the National Assembly in Wales and Northern Ireland?

- Is there the English Parliament?

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