House of Parliament-Functions of the HoC and HoL

What system of parliament does the UK have

A bicameral system

What is a bicameral system of parliament?

When the system is made up of two chambers

What chambers make up the UK Parliament

House of Commons and House of Lords

What are constituencies?

Areas that the UK has been divided into

How many constituencies are in the UK

650

What is a backbench MP

MPs that do not sit in the two front benches in the HoC.

What MPs sit in the front benches in the HoC

Members of the government, cabinet ministers, members of the shadow cabinet and the opposition party's leadership team

What is the name of the lower house in the bicameral system in the UK

The House of Commons

What is the name of the upper house in the bicameral system in the UK

The House of Lords

What is a life peer in the HoL

Lords who retain their title for their life time but cannot pass the title on to their children

What does the HoL consist of

Life peers, hereditary peers, archbishops and bishops

How many life peers are there in the HoL

Over 700

What are hereditary peers

People who inherited their title of Lord from their family

What reform has happened to the hereditary peers

O House of Lords act 1999 reduced the number of hereditary peers down to 92

O House of Lords hereditary peers Act 2026 - removed all hereditary peers

What are the bishops and archbishops in the HOL known as and how many are there

Lords spiritual and there's 26 bishops and archbishops

House of Lords selection

O The House of Lords appointments commission (HOLAC) can recommend members to the hol who are not aligned to any party. Any member of the public can nominate a person to be reviewed for membership selection by the commission

House of Lords Selection 2-PM

The prime minister can recommend members to the HOL using the power of patronage.

• Gordon Brown (PM from 2007-2010) recommended lord sugar to the House of Lords in 2009

• David Cameron recommended Ed Llewellyn, his former chief of staff, as a member of the lords in 2016

• Party leaders of the conservatives, labour and the liberal democrats can use political lists to include people their party want appointed to the House Of Lords, and act in the party’s interests.

What are the key functions of the House of Commons

Legislation, scrutiny, representation, debate, providing ministers for government and legitimisation.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) Fulfilled: Representation

-The House of Commons represents all of the UK’s geographical regions- each of the 650 MPs represent an average constituency size of 75,000 voters
-MPs represent their constituents’ interests in debates and votes: MP Ken Clarke voted to give Parliament a vote on any Brexit deal reached, as his constituents voted to remain, going against conservative policy.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) Fulfilled: Law Making

• House of Commons passes legislation through a number of stages. Laws are debated before being passed

• The government’s planned laws for the year are outlined in the King’s speech. Government bills are often successfully passed by parliament.

• Private members’ bills’ are introduced by MPs and become laws if they pass through the law-making process.

Give two examples of successful HoC effectiveness in Law making

• The Data Protection Act (2018) increased regulation of personal data

• The City of London Corporation Act (2018) is a private members’ bill which allowed the City of London Corporation to have a greater management of open spaces in London

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) Fulfilled: Legitiamtion

• The House of Commons approves important decisions that impact people in the UK, had has used its legitimacy function to stop, change, and question Government action

• Example: 2013, the House of Commons voted against military intervention in Syria, which was proposed by the government.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) Fulfilled: Scrutiny

• PMQs every Wednesday where the PM is questioned by the leader of the opposition and other members of parliament.

• Departmental Select Committees scrutinise government department work and ministers in more depth than question times.

• The convention of individual ministerial responsibility holds all ministers in government accountable for the actions of themselves and their department.

Give two examples of Departmental Select Committees scrutinising government and ministers

• Nick Hurd, the Home Office Minister, was questioned by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on the support provided for the people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

• The Home Affairs Select Committee investigated a disagreement in 2011 between Therese May, the Home Secretary at the time, and Brodie Clark, a civil servant, over the UK border force failings.

Give an example of individual ministerial responsibility holding a minister accountable for their actions

• Amber Rudd resigned as Home Secretary after she misled the House of Commons over her department’s targets for removing illegal immigrants from the UK.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Representation

The HoC fails to represent the UK’s social makeup, despite the chamber becoming more diverse:

• Average MP age is 48, with very few MPs being under 30, meaning younger people remain underrepresented.

• Ethnicity: 12% of MPs elected in 2024 were from ethnic minority backgrounds, while 16% of the UK population are of an ethnic minority background.

• Education: 23% of MPs went to Oxford or Cambridge

• Gender: 263 female MPs were elected in 2024, the highest ever, making up 40% of all MPs.
  

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Law Making

The process of making laws can take a long time because a bill has to pass through a number of stages before it becomes a law.

• The Assaults on Emergency Workers Act (2018), which increased protection for people working for emergency services, took over a year to pass through Parliament and become a law.

• Private members’ bills rarely become law; in most parliamentary sessions, fewer than five receive royal Assent.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Law Making (Party Whips)

MPs cannot always freely debate and vote on laws because the party leadership can tell them to follow the party line. The government and party leadership use party whips, who are MPs appointed by each party, to vote force bills through parliament.

• A three-line whip is an instruction for MPs to vote in a certain, party approved way.

• A three-line whip was used by the Conservative Party leadership to order conservative MPs to vote for triggering Article 50, beginning the UK’s exit from the EU.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Legitimation

The HoC has legitimised government action which was not in the interest of the people in the UK

• The war in Iraq was legitimised by the House of Commons despite lots of public opposition. Over 750,00 people protested in London on a single day in February 2003 against the war.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Scrutiny

Some view PMQs as lacking the power and effectiveness to properly scrutinise government as most ministers often avoid directly answering questions

• PMQs has been nicknamed “Punch and Judy” politics because it becomes a political shouting match rather than a tool to hold the government account.

• MPs often ask planted questions at PMQs to make the government and party leaders appear strong to the public.

Effectiveness of Functions (HoC) NOT Fulfilled: Select Commitee Scrutiny

Can be viewed as infective at holding the government to account when ministers are unhelpful in providing evidence when questioned.

• in 2016 Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary at the time, was accused of “waffling” by the committee chair of the foreign affairs select committee during questioning.

What are the main functions of the HoL

Law making, scrutiny of government and investigating public policy and representation.

How do the HoL make laws

• They propose amendments to bills during the law-making process

• They can delay the passage of a bill through parliament if they do not agree with he bill.

• HoL can defeat the government by not passing a bill, sending it back down to parliament, which does not kill the bill. The Lords can defeat secondary legislation.

How do the HoL scrutinise government

Scrutiny of the government takes place in the form of written and spoken questions put to government and through debates over policy.

How do the HoL investgate public policy

• Select committees in the HoL conduct investigations into policy areas by listening to evidence from a range of people including experts in the policy and ministers

• From 2016-2017 the HoL produced 41 reports on policy areas including Brexit and autonomous vehicles.

How do the HoL represent the people

• HoL contains peers who may represent underrepresented groups in elected politics.

• They represent expertise from across society and a range of different professional backgrounds.

• They represent different political views: As of 2025 the conservatives remain the largest group, followed by labour with no overall majority.

• There are around 170-180 crossbenchers who do not align themselves with any party.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions Fulfilled-Law making

• Bills are thoroughly debated and scrutinised in the House of Lords before progressing through their stages and being passed into law.

• The House of Lords contains experts who can provide input into debates and committee reviews of bills.

  • Lord Krebs is a zoologist and an expert in the field of science and was the former President of the British Science Association.

  • Lord Winston is a medical doctor and fertility expert who has contributed scientific expertise to debates on healthcare and medical ethics.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions Fulfilled- Scrutiny

• Each government department has a member of the House of Lords linked to it that will face questions during question time from other Lords.

  • Questioning of the government happens for 30 minutes each day from Monday to Thursday.

• The House of Lords submits written questions to the government.

  • In the 2022-23 session, over 18,000 written and oral questions were put to the government

• The House of Lords makes sure that a government with a large majority is held to account by debating and proposing amendments to bills.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions Fulfilled- Scrutiny 2

• No single party controls the House of Lords, increasing non-partisanship in the chamber.

• Life peerages mean that Lords don't have to worry about losing their position if they disobey a whip.

• Lords don't have constituencies, so they can spend more time in parliament scrutinising the government.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions Fulfilled- HoL interventions

• In 2015, the House of Lords voted to delay cuts to tax credits.

  • In response, the proposed cuts were delayed and modified in the Autumn statement the next month.

• The European Union withdrawal bill had been defeated in the Lords a total of 17 times by October 2018.

  • The House of Lords forced legislation changes, such as making a meaningful vote for parliament, and ensuring that EU environmental law is still applied after Brexit.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions Fulfilled- Representation

• The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 removed all remaining hereditary peers.

• The Lords Spiritual (Women) Act in 2015 (extended in 2025) means that if a woman becomes a diocesan bishop, she joins the next vacancy for bishops in the House of Lords until 2030.

• Members of the House of Lords represent and advocate for diverse groups in Parliament.

  • Baron Bird advocates for homeless people.

• Members of the House of Lords debate issues of importance to the public, such as housing and the economy.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions NOT Fulfilled- Law making

• The House of Lords is not able to stop legislation passing through which it disagrees with, it can only delay and propose amendments to bills.

  • In 2017 the House of Commons rejected two amendments made by the House of Lords to a bill which enabled the UK to start negotiations to leave the European Union.

  • The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 prevent the House of Lords from stopping legislation passing through Parliament and from debating a money bill, which is a bill that only involves government spending or taxation.

• The Salisbury Convention means that the House of Lords is unable to oppose policies in the manifesto of the elected government.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions NOT Fulfilled- Scrutiny

• Some members of the House of Lords don't fulfil their role in parliament, only turning up to receive their expenses.

  • Data from the 2019-24 parliament shows a significant number of peers claimed large expenses despite speaking rarely in the chamber.

• The House of Lords has the same difficulties as the House of Commons when posing written and spoken questions to the government.

Effectiveness of Functions: Functions NOT Fulfilled-Representation

• Members are not elected by the public, and the chamber doesn't directly represent citizens like the House of Commons does.

• The majority of the other peers were appointed by party leaders through the power of patronage, instead of independently.

• Over half of the members are over 70.

• Church of England bishops are in the House of Lords, but no representatives from any other religion