The British Parliament and the Electoral System

The British Parliament consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and the Queen as its head.

The House of Commons plays the major role in law-making. It consists of Members of Parliament (called MPs for short), each of whom represents an area in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. MPs are elected ei­ther at a general election, or at a by-election following the death or retirement of an MP.

Parliamentary elections must be held every five years, but the Prime Minister can decide on the exact date within those five years. The minimum voting age is 18, and the voting is taken by secret ballot.

The election campaign lasts about three weeks. The election is decided on a simple majority—the candidate with most votes wins. An MP who wins by a small num­ber of votes may have more votes against him (that is, for the other candidates) than for him. Many people think that it is unfair because the wishes of those who voted for the unsuccessful candidates are not repre­sented at all. The British parliamentary system depends on political parties. The political parties choose can­didates in elections. The party which wins the major­ity of seats forms the Government and its leader usu­ally becomes Prime Minister. The Prime Minister chooses about 20 MPs from his or her party to be­come the Cabinet of Ministers. Each minister is respon­sible for a particular area of the government. The sec­ond largest party becomes the official opposition with its own leader and “Shadow cabinet”. Leader of the Opposition is a recognized post in the House ofCom­mons.

The House of Commons

The House of Commons is made up of 650 elected members, known as Members of Parliament (MPs). The House of Commons is presided over by the Speaker, a member acceptable to the whole House. MPs sit on two sides of the hall, one side for the governing party and the other for the opposition. The first two rows of seats are occupied by the leading members of both parties (called ‘front-benchers’), the back benches belong to the rank-and-file MPs ('back-benchers'). Each session of the House of Commons lasts for 160—175 days. Parliament has inter­vals during its work. MPs are paid for their parliamentary work and have to attend the sittings. MPs have to catch the Speaker's eye when they want to speak, then they rise from where they have been sitting to address the House and must do so without either reading a prepared speech or con­sulting notes.

Although there is some space given to other than government proposals, the lion's share of parliamentary time is taken by the party in power. A proposed law, a bill, has to go through three stages in order to become an Act of Parliament. These are called readings. The first reading is a formality and is simply the publication of the proposal. The second reading involves debate on the principles of the bill, its examination by a parliamentary committee, and the third reading—a report stage, when the work of the committee is reported on to the House. This is usually the most important stage in the process. The third reading is often a formality too; if six members table a motion, then there has to be a debate on the third reading. If the majority of MPs still vote for the bill, it is sent to the House of Lords for discussion. When the Lords agree, the bill is taken to the Queen for Royal assent. All bills must pass through both houses before being sent for signature by the Queen, when they become Acts of Parliament and the Law of the Land.

The House of Lords

The other House of Parliament is the House of Lords. The House of Lords has more than 1,000 members, although only about 250 take an active part in the work of the House. This House consists of those lords who sit by right of inher­itance and those men and women who have been given life peerages which end with the life of their possessors. Mem­bers of this Upper House are not elected. They sit there because of their rank. The chairman of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor and he sits on a special seat called the Woolsack.

The members of the House of Lords debate a bill after it has been passed by the House of Commons. Changes may be recommended, and agreement between the two Houses is reached by negotiations. The Lords' main power consists in being able to delay non-financial bills for a period of a year, but they can also introduce certain types of bill. The House of Lords is the only non-elected second chamber in the parliaments of the world, and some people in Britain would like to abolish it.

The division of Parliament into two Houses goes back to over some 700 years when a feudal assembly assisted the King. In modern times, real political power rests with the elected House although members of the House of Lords may oc­cupy important cabinet posts.

Political Parties

Political parties first emerged in Britain at the end of the 17th century. The Conservative and Liberal Parties are the oldest and until the end of the 19th century they were the only parties elected to the House of Commons. The main British political groupings are the Conservative and Labour Parties and the Party of Liberal Democrats. The Conserva­tive Party is the present ruling party, the Labour Party - the opposition to the Conservative—and the party of Lib­eral Democrats is called 'conservatively oriented'. The So­cial Democratic Party was formed in 1981 and made an alliance with the Liberal Party in 1988.

There are also some other parties: the Scottish National and Welsh Nationalist Parties, the Communist Party of Britain and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Because of the electoral method in use, only two major parties obtain seats in the House of Commons. People be­longing to smaller political parties join one of the larger parties and work from within to make their influence felt. The exception to this are members of the Scottish National and Welsh Nationalist Parties, who, because their votes are concentrated in specific geographical areas, can manage to win seats although their total sup­port is relatively small.

The Conservative Party

The Conservative Party, often called the Tory Party, is one of those which can trace its roots back to this early period. Today the Tory Party is that of big business, indus­try, commerce and landowners. Most of the money needed to run the party comes from large firms and companies. The party represents those who believe in private enterprise as opposed to state-owned undertakings. There is some divi­sion within the party itself: the more aristocratic wing and the lower-middle-class group. The Tories are a mixture of the rich and privileged—the monopolists and landowners. The Conservative Party is the most powerful and is often called a party of business directors.

The word “Tory” means an Irish highwayman and was applied to the conservatives by their opponents but later they adopted the name to describe themselves. The Tories opposed the ideas of the French Revolution, Parliamentary Reform and the development of Trade Unionism. They represent co­lonial policy. In home policy they opposed the tendencies of the Labour Party to nationalize gas, electricity, coal and the railways. Today the Conservative Party can broadly be de­scribed as the party of the middle and upper classes.