The Legislature

Functions of the Commons:

  1. Forms and sustains govt after general election

  2. Supreme law making body, although legitimates rather than legislates as time is directed by cabinet

  3. Scrutiny of ministers via select committees through ‘point scoring’

  4. Arbiter of taxes and spending, but again directed

  5. Focal point for MP’s constituents to raise grievances

  6. Forum for debate

Reform:

  • Specialist committees introduced 1979 to shadow departments: counter govt domination of departments

  • Radio and TV coverage

  • Simplification of archaic services, increased support services

  • Some still calling for reduction in MP numbers.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority set MP’s pay, expenses etc.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigates complaints against MPs and recommends action.

Commons Sanctions Committee decides sanctions to be taken against MPs.

Still reliance on self-regulation from MPs.

House of Lords

2nd chamber, known as ‘upper house.’

Rooted in the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot and its Norman successor, the Curia Regis (Court of the King),

- Lords Spiritual: archbishops, bishops, abbots - Lords Temporal: earls and barons

Before 1958, exclusively hereditary, but reform has pushed it to be no longer largely conservative. Not as inclusive as Commons, but more so a ‘House of Experts’ now.

Reform:

  • Life peerage before 1958 left very little activity, but ‘new blood’ encouraged a new energy, later sittings and more involvement in policy, annoying some governments.

  • Cameras and radio introduced 4 years before Commons (1985)

  • The ‘Chair’ of the House used to be the Lord (High) Chancellor of England who was also Head of the Judiciary. Since the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Lords themselves have chosen one of their own as Lord Speaker, currently Lord McFall (since 2016).

Lords Functions:

Legitimisation

-Not bound by loyalty to a given government.

- Free from the ‘threat’ of election, its members can speak freely and without pandering to short term public opinion

- It offers a technocratic legitimacy based on its members’ experience and expertise

Recruitment

- a source of additional ministerial personnel for government, especially legal roles

Expression

– raising issues of public concern and sounding notes of caution in times of public panic

Scrutiny and Influence

- Revising or delaying hasty ‘ill-considered’ draft legislation

- Bringing to bear the expertise and experience of its members (from law, education, science, the arts, industry, the churches, the media and even former senior politicians)

- Large numbers of amendments made to Bills

- Sharing the burden of the Government’s legislative programme

Judicial (until September 2009)

Labour’s attempt at reform:

1999 – Stage 1: abolition of most hereditary peers’ right to sit and vote in the House of Lords leaving only 92 hereditary peers alongside c.500 life peers.

2003-04 – Stage 2: no agreement on alternative & further postponement until after next Election.

2007 – Another attempt at reform. MPs voted by a large majority for an all elected second chamber but the House of Lords voted for all-appointed body by an even larger majority. Deadlock

LORDS’ REFORMS 2010-2015

◼ 2010 – 2015. The new Coalition Government wanted reform to introduce a hybrid system - 80% elected, 20% appointed.

◼ Draft House of Lords Reform Bill were published on 17 May 2011.

◼ Retain the name ‘House of Lords’ for legislative purposes.

◼ 300 members of which 240 are "Elected Members" and 60 appointed "Independent Members". Up to 12 Church of England bishops may sit in the house as ex-officio "Lords Spiritual".

◼ Elected Members would serve a single, non renewable term of 15 years.

◼ Elections to the reformed Lords would take place at the same time as elections to the House of Commons.

◼ Elected Members would be elected using the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation.

◼ Twenty Independent Members (a third) would take their seats within the reformed house at the same time as elected members do so and for the same 15-year term. LORDS’ REFORMS (Most Recent)

◼ Amid considerable recriminations among the coalition partners, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg announced that the Government had abandoned the bill due to the opposition from Conservative MPs saying the Tories had "broken the coalition contract”. In response, the Liberals later vetoed Tory plans to reduce the number of MPs and boundary changes, thereby further straining coalition relations.

◼ Two pieces of reform were introduced:

◼ House of Lords Reform Act 2014 allowed members of the Lords to resign or retire, plus providing for the exclusion of members who had received custodial prison sentences of 1 year or more.

◼ House or Lords (Explusion and Suspension) Act, 2015, extended these provisions to remove members who had a record of poor attendance or were otherwise in poor standing

Alliance for Radical Democratic Change

◼ to end the centralisation of power in Whitehall and Westminster

◼ to devolve effective economic and social powers to the regions and nations

◼ to make our cities and regions centres of initiative for full employment and good jobs

◼ to ensure coordination between all levels of government to achieve a fairer greener and wealthier Britain in which each nation and region enjoys the respect it deserves