House of Commons

Introduction
• The House of Commons is the lower house of the UK Parliament, the Lords being the Upper
House, in the bi-cameral system. The 650 members of the Commons are known as Members of
Parliament, or more commonly MPs.
• MPs are either frontbenchers or backbenchers. Frontbenchers include government ministers
(there are about 100), their opposing counterparts (called shadow ministers) and spokesmen.
All other MPs are called backbenchers.

Functions

The House of Commons has a variety of functions.

• firstly, it sustains and legitimises the executive, which consists of government MPs. On the
other hand, the Commons also scrutinizes the executive, particularly when considering
legislation, which are laws that the Commons has the sovereignty to make – including those
concerning finance. Ultimately, the Members of the House of Commons are voted in by and
thus represent the electorate.
• Also known as the ‘Lower Chamber’, ‘elected chamber’, ‘popular chamber’.

• Role is to debate and vote on policies and bills etc, and generally discharge role of elected
sovereign legislative body. • 11 MPs do not vote: • The Speaker; • 3 x Deputy Speakers; • 7
Sinn Fein MPs (disqualified from sitting and voting partly because of refusal to swear oath of
loyalty to Queen).

Historical Background
• The House of Commons, also called Commons, popularly elected legislative body of the
bicameral British Parliament. Although it is technically the lower house, the House of
Commons is predominant over the House of Lords, and the name “Parliament” is often used to
refer to the House of Commons alone.
• The origins of the House of Commons date from the second half of the 13th century, when
landholders and other property owners in the counties and towns began sending
representatives to parliament to present grievances and petitions to the king and to accept
commitments to the payment of taxes.
• In the 14th century the knights and burgesses chosen as representatives (i.e. the commons)
began sitting in a separate chamber, or ‘house’ from that used by the nobles and high clergy (i.e.
the lords).
• The House of Lords was initially the more powerful of the two houses but over centuries its
powers gradually diminished. By the late 17th century, The House of Commons had gained the
sole right to initiate taxation measures.
• The House of Lords retained its veto power over bills passed by the commons, however, and in
1832 the only recourse of the liberal party government was to threaten to replace the House of
Lords with new liberal peers (nobles, aristocrats) in order to prevent it from rejecting that
government’s reform bill.
• Eighty years later, the same threat was used again by a liberal government to compel the lords
to approve the Parliament Act of 1911, which enabled a majority of the House of Commons to
override the Lords’ rejection of the bill. Under this act, The House of Lords lost the power to
delay legislation passed by the commons for the raising and spending of revenue; it also lost the
power to delay other legislation for a period beyond two years (reduced in 1949 to one year).
The act also reduced the maximum duration of parliamentary session to five years.

Membership Of The House Of Commons

• The membership of the House of Commons stood at 658 from 1801 when Great Britain and
Ireland were united by the Act of Union to form the United Kingdom until 1885, when it was
increased to 670. In 1918 it was increased to 707.
• It was also changed under subsequent acts. At the general election in May 2010, 650
members were returned 533 from England, 59 from Scotland, 40 from Wales and 18 from
Northern Ireland.
• Despite its large membership, the chamber of the House of Commons seats only 427 persons,
after it was destroyed by a German bomb during World War II. There has been a considerable
discussion about enlarging the chamber and replacing its traditional rectangular structure with
a semi-circular design. The chamber was rebuilt in 1950 to match its original size and shape.
Eligibility For Seat In House Of Commons
• People wishing to stand as an MP must be over 18 years of age, be a British citizen or citizen
of a Commonwealth country or the Republic of Ireland
• Candidates must be nominated by ten parliamentary electors of the constituency they wish to
stand in.
• Authorisation is required to stand for a specific party, otherwise candidates will be described
as independent or have no description.
• In order to encourage only serious candidates to stand, a £500 deposit is required when
submitting the nomination papers - returned if the candidate receives over five per cent of the
total votes cast.
• Certain people are disqualified from standing as an MP (judges, bankruptcy, prisoners). • 65
MPs identify as ethnic minority members (would be 93 If strictly representative ethnically
speaking)
• 220 MPs are women (would be as little as 327 if strictly representative gender-wise).

Functions Of The House Of Commons

• The House Of Commons is the executive legislative authority in Great Britain. It alone has the
right to impose taxes and to vote money to, or withhold it from, the various public departments
and services.
• The House of Lords has only infrequently held up major legislation passed by the Commons,
and the British sovereign almost automatically provides the Royal Assent to any bill passed.
Indeed, the last bill to be rejected by a monarch was the Scottish Militia Bill of 1707, which was
vetoed by Queen Anne. Acts of Parliament are not subject to judicial review.

The Electorate
• Citizens of UK or Ireland aged 18 or over.
• The electoral register (sometimes called the ‘electoral roll’) lists the names and addresses of
everyone who’s registered to vote. – You must be on the electoral roll in order to vote. • You can
be disqualified from the electorate if you are a prisoner or mental health detainee.

First-Past-The-Post System
• First Past the Post is the name for the electoral system used to elect Members of Parliament
(MPs) to Westminster.
• In elections to the House of Commons, a single individual is elected from a Parliamentary
constituency to serve as the Member of Parliament. This can be done either by the current
voting system known as “First Past The Post” (FPTP).
• In elections held under FPTP, each voter makes a mark next to one candidate on the ballot
paper. First Past The Post is a “plurality” voting system: the candidate who wins the most votes
in each constituency is elected.
Election Of Speaker
• At the beginning of each new session of Parliament the House elects from its members the
speaker, who presides over and regulate, debates and rules on points of order and members’
conduct.
• The speaker does not participate in debates and votes and only does so in order to break a tie,
a case that compels the speaker to vote in favour of the status quo.
• The calling of members to speak in debate is entirely in the speaker’s hands, the main concern
being to ensure that a variety of points if view are heard. Prime Minister
• By a convention of the constitution, the Prime Minister is always a member of the House of
Commons, instead of a member of either house. The government party appoints the leader of
the House of Commons, who manages the party’s legislative programme.

Regional Legislatures
• Beginning in 1999, power over a number of matters including health, education, housing,
transportation, the environment, and agriculture – was devolved from the British Parliament to
the newly established Scottish Parliament, National Assembly of Wales, and Northern Ireland
Assembly.

(Non-) Proportionality
• Proportional representation is an electoral system in which the distribution of seats
corresponds closely with the proportion of the total votes cast for each party. For example, if a
party gained 40% of the total votes, a perfectly proportional system would allow them to gain
40% of the seats.
• The Conservatives have 364 seats – meaning they have 56% of seats in the House of
commons, possibly showing non-proportionality.

Dicey’s House Of Commons

• Dicey was writing at a time of unprecedented regard for the UK Parliament – John Bright
called it the ‘mother of all Parliaments’. •
At this time: o The electorate consisted of men who owned or rented property o Parliamentary
candidates were male volunteers, who (according to JS Mill) embodied the ideal of gratuitous
public service (MPs were not salaried until 1911).
o Parliament was dominated by ruling family dynasties - many MPs were younger members of
noble families, without parents, siblings, uncles, cousins etc having seats in the House of Lords.
o Parliament was overwhelming oath-sworn Christian, with exception of two Jewish MPs. o The
House of Lords could veto a Bill approved by the Commons indefinitely.
Reforms
• Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 took away the right of the House of Lords to veto a Commons
Bill and replaced it with a power of delay.
• Three Acts have received royal assent without the approval of the House of Lords under the
Parliament 1911 o Government of Ireland Act 1914 o Welsh Church Act 1914 Parliament Act
1949 • Four Acts have been passed under the Parliament Act 1949, including most recently the
Hunting Act 2004.
• Some are calling for electoral reform, notably: o Move to proportional representation. o
Voting at 16. o Another is the call for a unicameral Parliament consisting only of the House of
Lords, initiated by Lady Claire Fox. Parliament Act 1911
• The Parliament Act 1911 had a profound effect on Parliament and politics in the 20th century.
It followed the constitutional crisis which had begun in November 1909 when the Conservative-
dominated House of Lords rejected the Liberal Government's ‘People's Budget'. • In the two
general elections that had followed in 1910 the issue of the House of Lords had dominated
debate. The Parliament Bill sought to remove the power of the House of Lords to reject money
bills, and to replace the Lords' veto over other public bills with the power of delay. In addition, it
was proposed to reduce the maximum duration of a Parliament from seven years to five. The
Parliament Act was passed by the House of Lords by a 131-114 vote in August 1911.
• The Parliament Act 1911 did nothing to alter the Conservative-dominated composition of the
Upper House but pointed the way towards future reform by hinting that attention would turn
shortly to the question of restructuring. However, the pressure of other issues, followed by the
upheaval of the First World War, meant that it would be some years before the matter was
looked at again. Government Of Ireland Act 1914
• The Government of Ireland Act 1914 was the Home Rule Bill that had been first introduced in
1912 and debated in Parliament for two years, which was finally passed under the Parliament
Act 1911 and given Royal Assent on 18 September 1914. However, on the same day a
Suspensory Act was also passed, which suspended the enactment of two Acts of Parliament
(the Government of Ireland Act and the Welsh Churches Act) initially for 12 months due to the
outbreak of war.
• Subsequent developments in Ireland, including the Easter Rising 1916 and the Irish Civil War,
led to subsequent postponement of the Government of Ireland Act and, finally meant it never
came into effect. In 1920, a repealing Government of Ireland Act was passed. However, this too
was never to be enacted. In 1922, rather than Home Rule being introduced, Ireland was divided
into two: the South to become a democratic republic and the North (Ulster) to remain part of
the United Kingdom.

Welsh Church Act 1914

• The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act under which the Church of England was separated and
disestablished in Wales and Monmouthshire, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales.
• The act had been demanded by the Nonconformist element in Wales, which comprised the
majority of the population and which resented paying taxes to the Anglican Church of England.
• The Act which took effect in 1920 was a controversial measure and was passed by the House
of Commons under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911, which minimized the ability of
the House of Lords to block it.
• The main financial terms were that the Church no longer receive tithe money (a land tax), but
kept all its churches, properties, and glebe. The Bill was politically and historically significant as
one of the first pieces of legislation to apply solely to Wales (and Monmouthshire). Parliament
Act 1949
• If the Parliament Act of 1911 was a battle between the House of Lords and the Liberal Party,
the Parliament Act of 1949 Act saw the Labour Party, elected in 1945, take on the upper house.
• The contentious issue was Clement Attlee's post-war government nationalisation programme.
In particular, Labour feared that the Lords would reject the Iron and Steel Bill. Labour sought to
reduce the Lords' power further, by reducing the time that the House of Lords could delay bills
from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. • This constitutional stand-
off saw the House of Commons pass the Parliament Bill in 1947, but it would take until
December 1949 for the law to be given Royal Assent under the provisions of the 1911 Act. In
recent times the validity of the 1949 Act has been questioned based on the legal principle
‘delegatus non potest delegare' (a delegate cannot enlarge on his own power).

War Crimes Act 1991

• The War Crimes Act 1991 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It confers
jurisdiction on courts in the United Kingdom to try people for war crimes committed in Nazi
Germany or German-occupied territory during the Second World War by people who were not
British citizens at the time but have since become British citizens or residents.
• The legislation was enacted, as there then were no provisions to allow the extradition of
British residents, or naturalised citizens to face trial for war crimes in third countries. Other
countries, such as the United States have used civil, rather than criminal proceedings, to resolve
this issue by revoking citizenship of suspects, facilitating their deportation.
• The Act was rejected by the House of Lords, and so it was passed with the authority of only
the House of Commons, under the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. The
Parliament Acts are rarely invoked: the War Crimes Act was only the fourth statute since 1911
enacted under their provisions, and the first since the Parliament Act 1949. The War Crimes Act
remains the only time that the Parliament Acts were invoked by a Conservative government.

European Parliament Elections Act 1999

• An Act to amend the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1978 so as to alter the method
used in Great Britain for electing Members of the European Parliament; to make other
amendments of enactments relating to the election of Members of the European Parliament;
and for connected purposes. Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
• The Act makes three changes to the law on sexual offences. First, it reduces the minimum age
at which a person, whether male or female, may lawfully consent to buggery (an offence which
does not exist in Scotland) and certain homosexual acts. This reduction is from 18 to 16 in
England and Wales and Scotland, and from 18 to 17 in Northern Ireland. This equalises the age
of consent for sexual activity so that it is the same for male homosexuals as for heterosexuals
and lesbians i.e. 16 in England, Wales, and Scotland and 17 in Northern Ireland. • Second, in all
jurisdictions, a person under the age of consent no longer commits an offence themselves if
they engage in buggery (not Scotland) or certain homosexual acts with a person over the age of
consent.
• Third, the Act introduces a new offence where a person aged 18 or over has sexual intercourse
or engages in any other sexual activity with or directed towards a person under that age, if the
person aged 18 or over is in a position of trust in relation to the younger person in
circumstances specified in the Act. A person convicted of such an offence, unless they are under
20 years old, will be subject to the notification requirements under the Sex Offenders Act 1997.
Any person convicted of the offence may also be made the subject of an “extended sentence”
by the court.

Hunting Act 2004

• On 18th November 2004, the Hunting Act was passed which controlled the hunting of wild
mammals with dogs and prohibited hare coursing in England and Wales. The Hunting Act 2004,
which came into force three months later on the 18th February 2005, is not an absolute
prohibition on the hunting of wild mammals with dogs and permits some types of hunting if an
exemption applies. The Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 pre-dated legislation
on hunting in the rest of Britain by two years.
• The Hunting Act was the culmination of many years of campaigning by the League Against
Cruel Sports, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) along with other groups and individuals. The latest
polling from Ipsos MORI, conducted in 2017 on behalf of the League Against Cruel Sports
showed that 85% of people think fox hunting should remain illegal, 87% of people think stag
should remain illegal and 90% think hare coursing and hare hunting should remain illegal.

Conclusion
• Within the UK’s evolutionary constitution, the House of Commons position is stable. The more
contentious of the chambers is the upper chamber, with close ties to the original Parliament at
Westminster, and an openness to the criticism that it is archaic.
Introduction
• The House of Commons is the lower house of the UK Parliament, the Lords being
the Upper House, in the bi-cameral system. The 650 members of the Commons
are known as Members of Parliament, or more commonly MPs.
• MPs are either frontbenchers or backbenchers. Frontbenchers include
government ministers (there are about 100), their opposing counterparts (called
shadow ministers) and spokesmen. All other MPs are called backbenchers. The
House of Commons has a variety of functions.
• firstly, it sustains and legitimises the executive, which consists of government MPs.
On the other hand, the Commons also scrutinises the executive, particularly
when considering legislation, which are laws that the Commons has the
sovereignty to make – including those concerning finance. Ultimately, the
Members of the House of Commons are voted in by and thus represent the
electorate.
• Also known as the ‘Lower Chamber’, ‘elected chamber’, ‘popular chamber’.
• Role is to debate and vote on policies and bills etc, and generally discharge role
of elected sovereign legislative body.
• 11 MPs do not vote:
• The Speaker;
• 3 x Deputy Speakers;
• 7 Sinn Fein MPs (disqualified from sitting and voting partly because of refusal to
swear oath of loyalty to Queen).
Historical Background
• The House of Commons, also called Commons, popularly elected legislative
body of the bicameral British Parliament. Although it is technically the lower
house, the House of Commons is predominant over the House of Lords, and the
name “Parliament” is often used to refer to the House of Commons alone.