Parliament Act

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Vote in the House of Lords on the Parliament Act of 1911

The Parliament Act is an act of the British Parliament dated August 10, 1911 (amended in 1949). It curtails the rights of the House of Lords ( English House of Lords ) in Parliament by stipulating that the upper house laws , which the lower house (English House of Commons ) were decided can not lift more or any delay long. It thus confirms the House of Commons as the supreme legislative power . On December 16, 1949, a number of changes in the Parliament Act further restricted the rights of the House of Lords by reducing the period of suspensive veto against bills from two years to one year.

Before the Parliament Act was passed, there was a power struggle between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, which the law decided in favor of the House of Commons. The members of the upper house are - in contrast to the lower house - not elected by the people; the Parliament Act was therefore an important step towards a more democratic legislative structure. Britain does not have a codified constitution, but the Parliament Act can be seen as part of British constitutional law.

Content of the law

Parliament Act 1911

The upper house lost with the Parliament Act be veto on financial matters: One of the lower house of approved financial bill (money bill) should the House of Lords at least one month submitted before the end of the session. If the House of Lords does not accept it unchanged within one month of being sent, the draft law - unless otherwise determined by the House of Commons - is submitted to the King and, after the royal approval, parliamentary law even if the House of Lords still does not approve it. The Parliament Act can only be applied to bills originating from the House of Commons, not to bills originating in the House of Lords.

Whether a public bill is a finance bill under the Parliament Act is decided by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The law must meet certain requirements, which are described in section 1.2 of the Parliament Act (see link to the German legal text in the references). This includes draft laws that affect the following areas:

  • Imposition, repeal, waiver, amendment or regulation of taxes
  • Issue of money from the consolidated sovereign wealth fund to repay debts or for other financial purposes
  • Issue of funds approved by Parliament or the modification or cancellation of any such expenses
  • the budget
  • Approving, collecting, managing, spending or reviewing public funds
  • Taking out or guaranteeing a bond or its repayment
  • subordinate matters related to these items

In addition, other public bills were also subject to restrictions. A draft law can become law even if it has not been approved by the House of Lords. The Parliament Act of 1911 reads (Section 2.1):

The legislative process under the Parliament Act of 1911
"If a public bill (with the exception of a finance bill or a bill that contains provisions to extend the maximum length of the legislative term to more than five years) is passed by the House of Commons in three consecutive sessions (be it during the same legislative term or not) and the House of Lords is sent at least one month before the end of the session and has been rejected by it in each of these session periods, then this draft law - unless the lower house determines otherwise - after the third rejection by the upper house of His Majesty and is after expressing the royal approval even if the House of Lords did not approve it. However, this provision should only take effect if two years have elapsed from the time of the second reading of the draft law in the House of Commons - during the first session - to the time it was passed by the House of Commons in the third session. "

The Parliament Act not only restricted the House of Lords' right of veto. He also shortened the maximum length of a legislative period from seven to five years.

Parliament Act 1949

The legislative process under the Parliament Act of 1949 (changes from 1911 in red)

The Parliament Act of 1949 further restricted the House of Lords' options . This law was enforced through the application of the Parliament Act of 1911 and is therefore not undisputed. The changes have accelerated the process: public bills can now be submitted to the king or queen after the second rejection by the upper house. In addition, the minimum time for adoption in the second session has been reduced from two years to one year.

The following criteria must be met for the House of Commons to be able to use a Parliament Act (this is also the name of the process for enforcing laws using the Parliament Act):

  • The House of Lords rejected the bill twice
  • One year lapse between the first and second session

Emergence

Cartoon caricaturing the conservative control of the lower house resulting from their majority in the upper house

The Parliament Act grew out of a conflict between the liberal government and the conservative upper house on the so-called "People's Budget" of Chancellor of the Exchequer ( finance minister ) David Lloyd George in 1909. This proposed the introduction of a property tax on the model of American tax reformer Henry George ago . The proposal would have had a huge impact on large landowners. Since the House of Lords was primarily composed of such, this proposal did not get a majority there. Rather, it was believed there that import taxes ( tariffs ) should be levied in order to strengthen the British economy.

The Liberal government under Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith then took advantage of the general unpopularity of the "Lords" to make the reduction of the power of the House of Lords a campaign topic for the January 1910 elections . The Liberals won the election, but suffered heavy losses compared to the primary; they formed a minority government and from then on were dependent on the support of the Labor Party and Irish nationalists. Asquith then asked King Edward VII to appoint new, liberal lords in order to be able to outvote the conservative lords in the upper house. The king accepted this demand hesitantly and with the condition that this had to be secured by a new lower house election. The House of Lords, as expected, rejected the Parliament Act, and Asquith called new elections to meet the king's condition and ensure that there was a clear mandate from the people to amend the constitution. So once again the Liberals made the reduction of the power of the House of Lords through a Parliament Act an election campaign issue. In comparison, the choice brought practically no changes.

In May 1910, however, Edward VII died. When the House of Lords tried to prevent the implementation of the Parliament Act again, the Prime Minister Asquith turned to the new King George V. This took the same line as Edward VII and agreed with Asquith that he , the King would appoint 250 new Liberal Lords if necessary to break the majority of Conservative Lords. The Conservative Lords gave in and approved the Parliament Act. Noteworthy: the property tax - which triggered the Parliament Act - was not introduced.

application

The Parliament Act has only been applied seven times to date. In 1914 the Welsh section was separated from the Church of England and converted into the Church of Wales. In the same year a law was passed providing for self-government in Ireland . In 1949 the amendments to the Parliament Act were enforced through the application of the Parliament Act of 1911. In 1991, the so-called War Crimes Act came (law against war crimes ) using the Parliament Act in force in the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom has been expanded to also cover acts which during the Second World War were committed for Nazi Germany. In 1999 a law was passed that changed the electoral system for the European Parliament to a form of proportional representation. A year later, in 2000, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act was enforced by a Parliament Act. Its aim was to equate the age of majority for male homosexual couples with heterosexual and lesbian couples.

The most recent law to come into force through a Parliament Act is the Hunting Act, which prohibits the hunting of mammals with dogs, particularly fox hunting . The law is highly controversial and has already led to wild tumult among supporters of the fox hunt around the British Parliament. Since fox hunting is widely viewed as a privilege of the upper class, the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the nobility , which in today's United Kingdom is mostly proxy and with many clichés on both sides as a conflict between town and country, also revived. For this reason, the upper house , which was still occupied by parts of the hereditary nobility , overturned the ban.

Laws passed by a Parliament Act

Laws that threatened the Parliament Act

By threatening the Parliament Act, the House of Commons can also try to put pressure on the House of Lords to agree to a compromise. So far there have been three legislative proposals in which this happened:

  • In the Temperance (Scotland) Act of 1913, which aimed to ban alcohol . The law provided that Scottish constituencies could vote on whether or not alcohol sales were allowed there.
  • In the 1976 amendment to the 1974 Trade Union and Labor Relations Act. The original law strengthened the rights of trade unions and workers, and the amendment should include a broader definition of unfair dismissal .
  • Under the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act of 1977, which nationalized and reorganized the UK aircraft and shipbuilding industries.

These three laws were rejected by the House of Lords after the first session, but as a result of a compromise solution they were accepted by the House in the last possible session. A Parliament Act was therefore not necessary in these cases.

preamble

Laws passed by a Parliament Act have the following preamble :

BE IT ENACTED by The Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, and by the authority of the same, as follows
BE ADOPTED by Her Royal Majesty, by and with the advice and approval of the House of Commons in this now assembled Parliament, under the provisions of and empowered by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, as follows

literature

  • Emil Huebner, Ursula Münch: The political system of Great Britain. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45651-0
  • Gert-Joachim Glaeßner: Constitutional politics and constitutional change. Germany and Great Britain in comparison. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-13570-8
  • Roy Jenkins : Mr. Balfour's Poodle. Bloomsbury Reader, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-4482-0320-8 .
  • Karl-Ulrich Meyn: The constitutional convention rules in the constitutional system of Great Britain. Schwarz, Göttingen 1975, ISBN 3-509-00793-X

Web links

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on December 6, 2004 in this version .