The Origin and Development of the British Parliament

Parliament is the center stage of British politics and is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom. The government emerges from Parliament and is accountable to it. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Since the beginning of Parliament, it has usually met at the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament), an old building in London. It meets twice a year, with the first session beginning in late March and ending in early August, and the second session beginning at the end of October and ending just before Christmas in December.

I. House of Lords - House of Peers

The members of the House of Lords are not elected, and are made up of descendants of the Crown, hereditary peers, legal peers, peers of the right of home, life peers, Scottish peers, Irish peers, and the outgoing Prime Minister. The number of members of the House of Lords is variable, as the Queen can make temporary additions to her titles, and no additions are required on the death of a member of the House.In 1986 the House of Lords*** had 1,196 members, of whom 64 were women, and there were 349 life peers, the rest being all hereditary peers. Most of the peers are Conservatives and the elderly are in the majority; the average age of the House of Lords is 63, with 95 over the age of 80. These nobles did not receive a salary, but received a certain amount of carriage for a day's work. That's why Engels sarcastically called the House of Lords "a retirement home for retired politicians".

The Speaker of the House of Lords is not elected, but is also the Lord Chancellor of the House of Lords. The Speaker is the chairman of the House when it meets.

The House of Lords meets at the same time as the House of Commons. The quorum for a sitting is only three, the number of persons passing a bill is 30, and there are only about 100 persons regularly present. More people attend only when the content of the bill involves a real interest of the MPs.

The Labour Party came to power after the end of the Second World War, in the implementation of welfare and social reform policies, and often by the House of Lords with a two-year delay in the veto to block, so in April 1949 Parliament passed the "Parliamentary Act", which provides that "the public **** bill by the House of Commoners for two consecutive sessions, notwithstanding the House of Lords. In April 1949, Parliament passed the "Parliamentary Law" that "a bill passed by the House of Commons in two consecutive sessions may become a law notwithstanding the veto of the House of Lords", so that the veto power of the House of Lords was reduced from two years to one year, and the power of the House of Lords was further weakened.

The House of Lords has another function, which is to exercise the highest judicial power in Britain, it is the highest court of appeal of all levels of courts in Britain, and it has the right to hear all civil and criminal cases except Scottish criminal cases.

When the Liberal Party came to power in 1870, it intended to abolish the judicial power of the House of Lords on the ground that the House of Lords was not a judicial talent, and then the two sides compromised and kept the judicial power of the House of Lords, and it made up for the lack of knowledge of law by the method of conferring the title of Lords on the legal peers. to compensate for the lack of legal knowledge.

The power of the House of Lords was weakened again and again, but it still could not be ignored in the political life of England, because:

Firstly, it also retained the right to discuss the financial laws. As many people in the House of Lords have held important positions in the country and are experienced, their opinions on the Finance Bill still have a significant impact.

Secondly, it retained the right to veto bills for a year, which still acted as an obstacle to bills in the House of Commons, especially since a year's delay in a bill of a temporal nature could render it materially ineffective.

Thirdly, it holds the highest judicial power in England.

Fourthly, the examination of bills passed by the House of Commons by the House of Lords can correct the shortcomings and abuses existing in the bills and make them more complete and more favorable to the needs of bourgeois rule.

The question of the existence or abolition of the "nursing home" has been a matter of debate in British political life since the 19th century, and the center of the debate has been whether to abolish it or to reform it. The Conservative Party has always advocated reform rather than abolition. The Labor Party was not unanimous in its successive assertions on this question. 1958, after the Conservatives came to power, they enacted the Life Peerages Act, which stipulated that the Prime Minister could bring to the King for appointment as a Life Peer any person who had made outstanding achievements in the various classes of public **** affairs, literature, art, science, entrepreneurship, military service, and trade union bureaucracy to be granted a baronetcy and be admitted to the House of Lords. The bourgeoisie hoped that, on the basis of retaining the House of Lords, it would put a few strokes of democracy on the House of Lords by expanding the scope of the peerage and increasing the number of types of peers, so as to ease the opposition of the masses.

Of course, the conservative and tradition-loving character of the British people is also the social basis for the existence of the House of Lords.

II. The House of Commons - the House of Commoners

(1) The formation and term of office of the members of the House of Commoners

The House of Commons is a democratic representative body, and the members of the House of Commons are elected.

At present, members of the House of Commons in Britain are elected by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage. This is the result of over 100 years of struggle by the working people of Britain. Since the beginning of the electoral reforms in 1832, three Representation of the People Acts were passed, in 1867, 1884 and 1918, which finally removed the restriction on eligibility for electoral property. Voters began to participate in elections not as property owners but as citizens of the country. 1872 saw the abolition of voting by show of hands and the introduction of secret ballots. 1918 saw the enfranchisement of women over 30 years of age. 1928 saw the enfranchisement of women over 21 years of age, and it was only in 1948 that the granting of 12 seats in the Universities was abolished, and the system of equal suffrage of one person, one vote, introduced. 1969 saw the passage of the The Representation of People's Act, passed in 1969, lowered the age of suffrage from 21 to 18.

Any British citizen in the UK who is over 18 and has not been disqualified by law from voting is now entitled to vote. However, the residency qualification remains, and voters must have lived in a constituency for at least 3-4 months to be registered on the electoral roll for that constituency. All citizens over the age of 21 have the right to stand for election. Candidates may be nominated by two voters and eight voters in a constituency, but nobles, bishops, judges, high-ranking civil servants, active military personnel, declared bankrupts, felons, and persons authorized to conduct elections are not eligible for election.

The election of members of the House of Commons is based on the system of relative majority in small electoral districts. That is, each constituency produces a member of Parliament, parliamentary candidates can be elected as long as they obtain a relative majority. There are currently a total of 650 constituencies, with 650 MPs elected. The distribution of seats Scotland not less than 71 seats, Wales not less than 35 seats, Northern Ireland not less than 12 seats, and other seats belonging to England.

Election campaigns in Britain are expensive, and in 1983 the campaign costs of the major parties in Britain: the Conservative Party spent 15 million pounds because of the support of big business owners, the Labor Party was 2.5 million pounds, and the Social Democrat Liberal Party coalition was 1 million pounds.

Members of the British House of Commons members are more complex, especially in the Labour Party has gained power since the MPs in the MPs have large landowners, chairman, the banking sector, the business community, lawyers, teachers, journalists, farmers, workers, trade union staff, etc., in the form of seemingly all aspects of the people are represented, in fact, to be elected to the parliamentary need for money and time, members of parliament to meet for about 8 months each year, long hours of Attendance at meetings and the high cost of living in London were difficult to bear without considerable financial resources, and thus most of the members were rich people, and very few of them were real working people. The legal term of office of the House of Commons was five years. However, the prime minister has the right to choose the right time to request the king to order the dissolution of parliament and early general election, or the ruling party's major decisions and proposals by the majority of the members of the House of Commons vetoed by the dissolution of parliament, to consult the public opinion, early general election, so the actual term of office of the House of Commons is shorter than 5 years. The average term of office is less than 4 years. the 1987 British parliamentary general election was held 11 months and 28 days earlier than the required date.

In addition, in special circumstances, mainly in wartime, the parliamentary term can be extended, the First World War, the term of office of the House of Commons from 1910 to 1918 before re-election. During the Second World War the term of office of the House of Commoners was 10 years from 1935 until 1945, when it was re-elected.

(2) Powers of the House of Representatives

The powers of the House of Representatives were mainly legislative, financial and supervisory.

The legislative power means the power to make, amend and repeal laws. The legislative procedure of the British Parliament can be divided into three stages: 1 proposal; 2 discussion resolution; 3 sent to the head of state for approval and publication.

The first stage is the proposal of bills. The national motion is divided into two kinds of public and private motions. A public bill is a bill that is national in nature and is related to the government. Most of them are proposed by the Cabinet, but individual MPs can also propose them, but they must be selected by a special parliamentary committee before they are put on the agenda.

Private Bills are those involving local corporations, local authorities, or certain collective or individual interests, and are brought before the House of Commons Private Bills Office by an agent of a local corporation. Private Bills are not always discussed in the House of Commons; about half are discussed in the House of Lords.

The second stage is discussion and decision. The British parliamentary discussion of the bill decision procedure is to go through three readings, the first reading is to read the name of the bill, explain the purpose, to determine the date of the second reading, the bill will be distributed to the members; the second reading of the bill read aloud article by article, for the principle of discussion, voting, such as through will be handed over to the committee to review the review can not be passed, the bill will be considered to have been vetoed. The committee discusses the bill in detail article by article, and reports to the House after revising it. The third reading of the bill is a vote on the bill, which only discusses whether the bill can be established as a whole, and is not allowed to discuss the bill article by article, and is not allowed to revise the content except for the wording. After the third reading, the bill is sent to the House of Representatives for adoption, and the other House also considers the bill by the procedure of the third reading.

The third stage is to submit the bill passed by the two houses to the King for approval and to publish it in the "Government Gazette" to take effect.

Financial power is one of the main powers of Parliament. It is called the "power of the treasury" or the "power of the purse". Fiscal bills mainly include the expenditure of the national budget, revenue, taxation, the use of national funds, the issuance of public debt, etc., this power belongs to the lower house of the exclusive, fiscal bills can only be proposed to the lower house and passed. The upper house only has the right to discuss and make recommendations. Since the time for discussion of finance bills is limited, and since the veto of a finance bill can lead to the resignation of the cabinet and a new general election, in most cases the lower house tends to pass the bill on the basis of the numbers proposed by the cabinet, with some criticisms and questions raised at most.

The right to scrutinize the government is an important power of parliament under the parliamentary cabinet system, where the cabinet is accountable to parliament and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Parliament monitors the government mainly by questioning the government, debating government policies, ratifying treaties, and casting a vote of no confidence in the government.

Questions to the government mean that MPs can ask for answers to questions on matters within the competence of government ministers. Oral questions are limited to a maximum of three per day per Member of Parliament, while written questions are unlimited. MPs' questions and answers are made public in a short time through the media, thus exerting pressure on the government.

Debates on government policy are held in response to the King's opening address to Parliament and during discussions of the state budget. Other than that, the consent of the government is required. Questioning can not be directly turned into a debate, if the issue needs to be debated, the need to propose a motion to adjourn the meeting, to have 40 MPs agree or 10 MPs agree to vote in favor of by the Parliament before Parliament can be adjourned, adjourned the next day after the debate with three hours. It is said that when the British Parliament meets, for fear that members will quarrel, tea is specially prepared to improve the atmosphere. This is probably an extension of the Chinese tea ceremony's spirit of mediocrity, calmness and tolerance.

The moving of a motion of no confidence in the government by the parliament is considered by the bourgeoisie as an effective means for the cabinet to be supervised by the parliament. According to the principle of the responsible cabinet system, the cabinet must have the support and trust of the parliamentary majority. If the parliament vetoes an important bill proposed by the government, a finance bill, or passes a motion of no confidence in the cabinet, the cabinet should either resign or ask the King of England to dissolve the House of Commons and call for an early general election. If the original ruling party still occupies a majority of seats after the general election, the cabinet can continue to govern, otherwise the cabinet must resign. This does not happen very often in two-party Britain, except when there is a split within the ruling party or when the ruling party has only a narrow majority and the opposition and smaller parties join together.

(iii) Organization within the House of Commons

There are two types of House of Commons bodies: committees and governing bodies.

There is a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons.

When a new parliament is summoned, a Speaker is elected, who is nominated by the majority party in the parliament and elected with the consent of the opposition. In order to show the impartiality of the Speaker, members of Parliament elected to the Speaker will have to withdraw from the original political party. In the United Kingdom, a habit has been formed, that is, he holds a supercilious attitude in the Parliament, in the two parties can not take sides with one party to suppress the other. The Speaker presides over the proceedings and explains the agenda according to a set of mechanical principles, so the Speaker is a dignified position without real power. The Deputy Speaker assists the Speaker.

The House also has standing committees, committees of the whole House, special committees and joint committees.

In addition, there are offices, secretariats, libraries and other departments in the House.