Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949
Encyclopedia
The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts
of the Parliament
of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom
. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that that Act and the Parliament Act 1911 are to be construed
as one.
The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 13) asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords
(the suspensory veto). Provided the provisions of the Act are met, legislation can be passed without the approval of the House of Lords. Additionally, the 1911 Act amended the Septennial Act to reduce the maximum life of a Parliament from seven years to five years. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the Parliament Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 103), which further limited the power of the Lords by reducing the time that they could delay bills, from two years to one.
The Parliament Acts have been used to pass legislation against the wishes of the House of Lords on seven occasions since 1911, including the passing of the Parliament Act 1949. Some constitutional law
yers had questioned the validity of the 1949 Act. These doubts were rejected in 2005 when members of the Countryside Alliance
unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the Hunting Act 2004
, which had been passed under the auspices of the Act. In October 2005, the House of Lords
dismissed the Alliance's appeal against this decision, with an unusually large panel of nine Law Lords holding that the 1949 Act was a valid Act of Parliament.
The 1911 Act was a reaction to the clash between the Liberal
government and the House of Lords, culminating in the so-called "People's Budget
" of 1909. In this Budget
, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
David Lloyd George
proposed the introduction of a land tax based on the ideas of the American tax
reformer Henry George
. This new tax would have had a major effect on large landowners, and was opposed by the Conservative
opposition, many of whom were large landowners themselves. The Conservatives believed that money should be raised through the introduction of tariff
s on imports, which they claimed would help British industry. Contrary to British constitutional convention, the Conservatives used their large majority in the Lords to vote down the Budget. The Liberals made reducing the power of the Lords an important issue of the January 1910 general election.
The Liberals returned in a hung parliament
after the election: their call for action against the Lords had energised believers in hereditary principle to vote for the Conservatives, but had failed to generate much interest with the rest of the voting public. The Liberals formed a minority government
with the support of the Labour
and Irish nationalist MPs. The Lords subsequently accepted the Budget when the land tax proposal was dropped. However, as a result of the dispute over the Budget, the new government introduced resolutions (that would later form the Parliament Bill) to limit the power of the Lords. The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, asked Edward VII
to create sufficient new Liberal peers
to pass the Bill if the Lords rejected it. The King refused, so Asquith went back to the polls to obtain an explicit mandate for the constitutional change.
The Lords voted this 1910 Bill down, so Asquith called a second general election in December 1910, and again formed a minority government. Edward VII had died in May 1910, but George V
agreed that, if necessary, he would create hundreds of new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the Lords. The Conservative Lords then backed down, and on 10 August 1911, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Act by a narrow 131–114 vote, with the support of some two dozen Conservative peers and eleven of thirteen Lords Spiritual
(who normally do not vote).
The Parliament Act was intended as a temporary measure. The preamble states:
One of the reasons for the Irish Parliamentary Party
MPs' support for the Parliament Act, and the bitterness of the Unionist
resistance, was that the loss of the Lords' veto would make possible Irish Home Rule
(i.e. a devolved
legislature). The previous Liberal government's attempt to initiate Irish Home Rule had been vetoed by the House of Lords in 1893: at the time of his retirement in 1894, William Ewart Gladstone
had not attracted sufficient support from his colleagues for a battle with the House of Lords. The Parliament Act resulted in the eventual enactment of the Irish Home Rule Government of Ireland Act 1914.
any public Bill
introduced in the House of Commons other than a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years or a Bill for confirming a Provisional Order
. The Act does not affect Bills introduced in the House of Lords, private Bill
s, or delegated legislation
.
The effect of the Act is that the House of Lords can delay those Bills that it could formerly veto. If they have been sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the Session, Money Bill
s can be delayed for up to one month after being sent up, and other Bills can be delayed for up to one year after being sent up. The period for which Bills other than Money Bills could be delayed was originally two years. The Speaker was given the power to certify which bills are classified as money bills.
The word "month" means calendar month.
Section 1(2) defines the expression "Money Bill
".
Section 1(3) provides:
Section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the Parliament Act 1911 has effect, and is deemed to have had effect from the beginning of the session in which the Bill for the Parliament Act 1949 originated (save as regards that Bill itself), as though sections 2(1) and (4), of Parliament Act 1911, read as they are printed in the following revised text of section 2 of that Act:
The words in square brackets are those substituted by section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949.
Before it was repealed in 1986, the proviso to section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949 read:
This proviso provided for the application of the Parliament Act 1911 to any Bill rejected for the second time by the House of Lords before the Royal Assent was given to the Parliament Act 1949 on 16 December 1949. In a report dated 27 September 1985, the Law Commission
and the Scottish Law Commission
said that this proviso had never been invoked and was, by that date, incapable of being invoked. They recommended that it be repealed.
The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, said of the clause that became this section:
, reducing the maximum duration of any Parliament from seven years to five.
The President of the Board of Education, Mr Runciman, said:
This section was repealed for the United Kingdom on 15 September 2011.
on 16 May 1983 by section 1 of, and Part IV of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1983 (No.11).
Immediately after the Second World War, the Labour government of Clement Attlee
decided to amend the 1911 Act to reduce further the power of the Lords, as a result of their fears that their radical programme of nationalisation would be delayed by the Lords and hence would not be completed within the life of the parliament. The House of Lords did not interfere with nationalisations in 1945 or 1946, but it was feared that the proposed nationalisation of the iron and steel industry would be a bridge too far, so a bill was introduced in 1947 to reduce the time that the Lords could delay bills, from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. The Lords attempted to block this change. The Bill was reintroduced in 1948 and again in 1949, before the 1911 Act was finally used to force it through. Since the 1911 Act required a delay over three "sessions", a special short "session" of parliament was introduced in 1948, with a King's Speech
on 14 September 1948, and prorogation on 25 October.
The amended Parliament Act was never used in the 1940s or 1950s, possibly because the mere threat of it was enough. The Salisbury convention
that the Lords would not block government bills that were mentioned in the government's manifesto
dates from this time. Salisbury
believed that since, in being returned to power, the Government was given a clear mandate for the policies proposed in its manifesto, it would be improper for the Lords to frustrate such legislation.
In every Bill presented to the Sovereign under sections 1 to 3 of the Parliament Act 1911 (as amended) the words of enactment are:
The usual enacting formula, used on other Acts, also refers to the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and omits the reference to the Parliament Acts.
The amended form of the 1911 Act has been used four times. These were:
The Welsh Church Act and the Government of Ireland Act were both given Royal Assent on the same day as the Suspensory Act 1914
, which meant that neither would come into force until after World War I.
After the Labour government came to power in 1997, there was repeated speculation that it would rely on the Parliament Acts to reverse a check from the Lords, but it did not prove necessary. The Parliament Acts were not required to enact, for example, the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No 2) Bill in 2000 (which originally proposed to give magistrate
s, not defendants, the choice of where an "either way
" offence would be tried) because the government abandoned the bill after a wrecking amendment
in the House of Lords. The Parliament Act was threatened to be used to get the Identity Cards Act 2006 passed through the Lords. This was backed up by a threat of an immediate introduction of a compulsory ID Card scheme. The Lords had no option but to accept a compromise of a delay in the introduction of the scheme. The Parliament Acts cannot be used to force through legislation that originated in the House of Lords, so they could not have been used to enact the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 or the Constitutional Reform Act 2005
.
The first three measures for which the Act has been used since 1949 were not mentioned in manifestos, and hence in trying to veto them the Lords were not breaking the Salisbury convention
. The Hunting Bill was mentioned in the Labour Party
manifesto for the 2001 general election
, so, depending upon how the convention is interpreted, the attempt to block it could be taken as a breach. However, as conventions are merely convention and not law, the House of Lords would not be taking illegal action if they were to act otherwise.
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 was repealed in entirety by the Government of Ireland Act 1920
, the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999
was repealed in entirety by the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002
and most provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
were repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003
. While the War Crimes Act 1991
remains in force, to date only one person has been convicted under it.
The threat of the Parliament Acts has been employed by several British governments to force the Lords to accept its legislation. In at least three cases, the procedure authorised by the Parliament Act 1911, or by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, was started, but the legislation was approved by the House of Lords as a result of the government making concessions. These were:
as to whether the use of the 1911 Act to pass the 1949 Act, which amended the 1911 Act itself, was valid. Three main concerns were raised:
To address these concerns, a Law Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, presented a Private Member's Bill
in House of Lords
in the 2000–2001 session of Parliament (the Parliament Acts (Amendment) Bill), which would have had the effect of confirming the legitimacy of the 1949 Act, but prohibiting any further such uses of the Parliament Act to amend itself, or use of it to further modify or curtail the powers of the House of Lords. Another Parliament Acts (Amendment) Bill was introduced independently by Lord Renton of Mount Harry in the next session, but neither of these Bills proceeded to a Third Reading
.
The first legal challenge to the 1949 Act is believed to have been made during the first prosecution for war crimes under the War Crimes Act 1991, R. v. Serafinowicz, but no record of the legal arguments remains. Because a second defendant was prosecuted under the War Crimes Act, and was sentenced to life imprisonment and since the War Crimes Act was later amended by both two further acts (the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
and the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996), which were passed by both Houses and received royal assent, the validity of the War Crimes Act is not under question.
The 1949 Act, and the validity of Acts made under it, were not questioned in court again until the Parliament Acts were used to pass the Hunting Act 2004. Early in 2005, the Countryside Alliance
took a case to court to challenge the validity of the 1949 Act. In the High Court, the wording of the 1911 Act was held not to imply any entrenchment. Support for this conclusion can be drawn from the parliamentary debates on the 1911 Act, in which an entrenchment clause
was considered but rejected, the Government clearly displaying the intention to be able to make such amendments if necessary. However, the 2005 decision was made on other grounds, so the question of whether the Courts could refer to the 1949 Act's Parliamentary debates under the principle established in Pepper v Hart
was not decided.
The High Court held that the 1949 Act was primary legislation
, despite being unusual in that the Courts can rule on whether the provisions of the 1911 Act are complied with. It was held that the 1911 Act clearly permits the procedures specified in the Parliament Acts to be used for "any Public Bill", and this was sufficient to dispose of the argument that the 1911 Act could not be used to amend itself. The Court took the view that the 1911 Act was a 'remodelling' of the constitution rather than a delegation of power.
The subsequent Court of Appeal
ruling agreed that the 1949 Act itself was valid, but left open the question of whether the Commons could use the Parliament Act to make significant changes to the constitution (for example, repealing the Parliament Act's provision prohibiting the Act from being used to extend the lifespan of Parliament). The Court of Appeal refused to give the Countryside Alliance permission to appeal their decision to the House of Lords
; however, a petition for permission to appeal was submitted directly to the Law Lords and granted in July 2005. Argument in the case was heard on 13 and 14 July 2005 by a large committee of nine Law Lords, rather than the normal five. In a unanimous decision, the Law Lords upheld the validity of 1949 Act.
, the Wakeham Royal Commission on the proposal of a "second stage" of reform reported in January 2000. Subsequently, the government decided to take no action to change the legislative relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
In March 2006, it was reported that the then-Labour Government was considering removing the ability of the Lords to delay legislation that arises as a result of manifesto commitments (while the Lords still acted in accordance with a self-imposed restriction, the Salisbury Convention
, which this legislation would have merely formalised), and reducing their ability to delay other legislation to a period of 60 days (although a compromise of 6 months has also been suggested). The Labour Government made no attempt to enact such changes before the 2010 general election, which Labour lost.
In May 2011, Deputy Prime Minister
Nick Clegg
announced the Coalition Government
's plans to legislate for a mainly elected House of Lords. In the face of fierce opposition from the overwhelming majority of the Lords, he indicated that he would consider use of the Parliament Act.
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
of the Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom
Constitution of the United Kingdom
The constitution of the United Kingdom is the set of laws and principles under which the United Kingdom is governed.Unlike many other nations, the UK has no single core constitutional document. In this sense, it is said not to have a written constitution but an uncodified one...
. Section 2(2) of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that that Act and the Parliament Act 1911 are to be construed
Statutory interpretation
Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is always necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity or...
as one.
The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 13) asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
(the suspensory veto). Provided the provisions of the Act are met, legislation can be passed without the approval of the House of Lords. Additionally, the 1911 Act amended the Septennial Act to reduce the maximum life of a Parliament from seven years to five years. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the Parliament Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 103), which further limited the power of the Lords by reducing the time that they could delay bills, from two years to one.
The Parliament Acts have been used to pass legislation against the wishes of the House of Lords on seven occasions since 1911, including the passing of the Parliament Act 1949. Some constitutional law
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....
yers had questioned the validity of the 1949 Act. These doubts were rejected in 2005 when members of the Countryside Alliance
Countryside Alliance
The Countryside Alliance is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as country sports, including hunting, shooting and angling...
unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the Hunting Act 2004
Hunting Act 2004
The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The effect of the Act is to outlaw hunting with dogs in England and Wales from 18 February 2005...
, which had been passed under the auspices of the Act. In October 2005, the House of Lords
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
The House of Lords, in addition to having a legislative function, historically also had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachment cases, and as a court of last resort within the United Kingdom. In the latter case the House's...
dismissed the Alliance's appeal against this decision, with an unusually large panel of nine Law Lords holding that the 1949 Act was a valid Act of Parliament.
Background
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
government and the House of Lords, culminating in the so-called "People's Budget
People's Budget
The 1909 People's Budget was a product of then British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, introducing many unprecedented taxes on the wealthy and radical social welfare programmes to Britain's political life...
" of 1909. In this Budget
United Kingdom budget
The United Kingdom budget deals with HM Treasury budgeting the revenues gathered by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and expenditures of public sector departments, in compliance with government policy.Adjustment is achieved with the GDP deflator....
, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
proposed the introduction of a land tax based on the ideas of the American tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
reformer Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
. This new tax would have had a major effect on large landowners, and was opposed by the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
opposition, many of whom were large landowners themselves. The Conservatives believed that money should be raised through the introduction of tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s on imports, which they claimed would help British industry. Contrary to British constitutional convention, the Conservatives used their large majority in the Lords to vote down the Budget. The Liberals made reducing the power of the Lords an important issue of the January 1910 general election.
The Liberals returned in a hung parliament
Hung parliament
In a two-party parliamentary system of government, a hung parliament occurs when neither major political party has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament . It is also less commonly known as a balanced parliament or a legislature under no overall control...
after the election: their call for action against the Lords had energised believers in hereditary principle to vote for the Conservatives, but had failed to generate much interest with the rest of the voting public. The Liberals formed a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
with the support of the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
and Irish nationalist MPs. The Lords subsequently accepted the Budget when the land tax proposal was dropped. However, as a result of the dispute over the Budget, the new government introduced resolutions (that would later form the Parliament Bill) to limit the power of the Lords. The Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, asked Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
to create sufficient new Liberal peers
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
to pass the Bill if the Lords rejected it. The King refused, so Asquith went back to the polls to obtain an explicit mandate for the constitutional change.
The Lords voted this 1910 Bill down, so Asquith called a second general election in December 1910, and again formed a minority government. Edward VII had died in May 1910, but George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
agreed that, if necessary, he would create hundreds of new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the Lords. The Conservative Lords then backed down, and on 10 August 1911, the House of Lords passed the Parliament Act by a narrow 131–114 vote, with the support of some two dozen Conservative peers and eleven of thirteen Lords Spiritual
Lords Spiritual
The Lords Spiritual of the United Kingdom, also called Spiritual Peers, are the 26 bishops of the established Church of England who serve in the House of Lords along with the Lords Temporal. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, is not represented by spiritual peers...
(who normally do not vote).
The Parliament Act was intended as a temporary measure. The preamble states:
- whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation.
One of the reasons for the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
MPs' support for the Parliament Act, and the bitterness of the Unionist
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
resistance, was that the loss of the Lords' veto would make possible Irish Home Rule
Irish Home Rule Movement
The Irish Home Rule Movement articulated a longstanding Irish desire for the repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 by a demand for self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The movement drew upon a legacy of patriotic thought that dated back at least to the late 17th...
(i.e. a devolved
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
legislature). The previous Liberal government's attempt to initiate Irish Home Rule had been vetoed by the House of Lords in 1893: at the time of his retirement in 1894, William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
had not attracted sufficient support from his colleagues for a battle with the House of Lords. The Parliament Act resulted in the eventual enactment of the Irish Home Rule Government of Ireland Act 1914.
Provisions
The Act abolished any power of the House of Lords to vetoVeto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
any public Bill
Public bill
In the legislative process, a public bill is a bill which proposes a law of general application throughout the jurisdiction in which it is proposed, and which if enacted will hence become a public law or public act....
introduced in the House of Commons other than a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years or a Bill for confirming a Provisional Order
Provisional Order
Provisional Order is a method of procedure followed by several government departments in England, authorizing action on the part of local authorities under various acts of Parliament....
. The Act does not affect Bills introduced in the House of Lords, private Bill
Private bill
A private bill is a proposal for a law that would apply to a particular individual or group of individuals, or corporate entity. If enacted, it becomes a private Act . This is unlike public bills which apply to everyone within their jurisdiction...
s, or delegated legislation
Delegated legislation
In the United Kingdom, delegated legislation is legislation or law that is passed otherwise than in an Act of Parliament . Instead, an enabling Act confers a power to make delegated legislation on a Government Minister or another person or body...
.
The effect of the Act is that the House of Lords can delay those Bills that it could formerly veto. If they have been sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the Session, Money Bill
Money bill
In the Westminster system , a money bill or supply bill is a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending , as opposed to changes in public law.- Conventions :...
s can be delayed for up to one month after being sent up, and other Bills can be delayed for up to one year after being sent up. The period for which Bills other than Money Bills could be delayed was originally two years. The Speaker was given the power to certify which bills are classified as money bills.
Section 1 - Powers of House of Lords as to Money Bills
Section 1(1) provides:The word "month" means calendar month.
Section 1(2) defines the expression "Money Bill
Money bill
In the Westminster system , a money bill or supply bill is a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending , as opposed to changes in public law.- Conventions :...
".
Section 1(3) provides:
Section 2 - Restriction of the powers of the House of Lords as to Bills other than Money Bills
This section originally provided that a Bill, to which this section applied, which was rejected by the House of Lords, would be presented for Royal Assent if it was passed by the Commons in three successive sessions, provided that two years had elapsed between Second Reading of the Bill and its final passing in the Commons, notwithstanding that the Lords had not consented to the Bill.Section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that the Parliament Act 1911 has effect, and is deemed to have had effect from the beginning of the session in which the Bill for the Parliament Act 1949 originated (save as regards that Bill itself), as though sections 2(1) and (4), of Parliament Act 1911, read as they are printed in the following revised text of section 2 of that Act:
The words in square brackets are those substituted by section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949.
Before it was repealed in 1986, the proviso to section 1 of the Parliament Act 1949 read:
This proviso provided for the application of the Parliament Act 1911 to any Bill rejected for the second time by the House of Lords before the Royal Assent was given to the Parliament Act 1949 on 16 December 1949. In a report dated 27 September 1985, the Law Commission
Law Commission (England and Wales)
In England and Wales the Law Commission is an independent body set up by Parliament by the Law Commissions Act 1965 in 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reforms. The organisation is headed by a Chairman and four Law Commissioners...
and the Scottish Law Commission
Scottish Law Commission
The Scottish Law Commission is Scottish advisory public body established by Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1965 to keep the law of Scotland under review and recommend necessary reforms to improve, simplify and update Scots law. It plays a leading role in developing the law for the people of...
said that this proviso had never been invoked and was, by that date, incapable of being invoked. They recommended that it be repealed.
Section 6 - Saving for existing rights and privileges of the House of Commons
This section provides:The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, said of the clause that became this section:
Section 7 - Duration of Parliament
This section amended the Septennial Act 1715Septennial Act 1715
The Septennial Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. It was passed in May 1716. It increased the maximum length of a parliament from three years to seven...
, reducing the maximum duration of any Parliament from seven years to five.
The President of the Board of Education, Mr Runciman, said:
This section was repealed for the United Kingdom on 15 September 2011.
Repeal
This Act was repealed for the Republic of IrelandRepublic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
on 16 May 1983 by section 1 of, and Part IV of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1983 (No.11).
Parliament Act 1949
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
decided to amend the 1911 Act to reduce further the power of the Lords, as a result of their fears that their radical programme of nationalisation would be delayed by the Lords and hence would not be completed within the life of the parliament. The House of Lords did not interfere with nationalisations in 1945 or 1946, but it was feared that the proposed nationalisation of the iron and steel industry would be a bridge too far, so a bill was introduced in 1947 to reduce the time that the Lords could delay bills, from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. The Lords attempted to block this change. The Bill was reintroduced in 1948 and again in 1949, before the 1911 Act was finally used to force it through. Since the 1911 Act required a delay over three "sessions", a special short "session" of parliament was introduced in 1948, with a King's Speech
Speech from the Throne
A speech from the throne is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign reads a prepared speech to a complete session of parliament, outlining the government's agenda for the coming session...
on 14 September 1948, and prorogation on 25 October.
The amended Parliament Act was never used in the 1940s or 1950s, possibly because the mere threat of it was enough. The Salisbury convention
Salisbury Convention
The Salisbury Convention is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom which puts forward that the House of Lords will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto.Following a landslide Labour general election victory in...
that the Lords would not block government bills that were mentioned in the government's manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
dates from this time. Salisbury
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, KG, PC , known as Viscount Cranborne from 1903 to 1947, was a British Conservative politician.-Background:...
believed that since, in being returned to power, the Government was given a clear mandate for the policies proposed in its manifesto, it would be improper for the Lords to frustrate such legislation.
In every Bill presented to the Sovereign under sections 1 to 3 of the Parliament Act 1911 (as amended) the words of enactment are:
The usual enacting formula, used on other Acts, also refers to the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual
Lords Spiritual
The Lords Spiritual of the United Kingdom, also called Spiritual Peers, are the 26 bishops of the established Church of England who serve in the House of Lords along with the Lords Temporal. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, is not represented by spiritual peers...
and Temporal, and omits the reference to the Parliament Acts.
Use of the Parliament Acts
The 1911 Act was used three times before its amendment in 1949. These were:- Welsh Church Act 1914Welsh Church Act 1914The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom under which the Welsh part of the Church of England was separated and disestablished, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales...
, under which the Welsh part of the Church of EnglandChurch of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
was disestablished in 1920, becoming the Church in WalesChurch in WalesThe Church in Wales is the Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.As with the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Archbishop of Wales serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The current archbishop is Barry Morgan, the Bishop of Llandaff.In contrast to the...
. - Government of Ireland Act 1914, which would have established a Home RuleHome ruleHome rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
government in Ireland; its implementation was blocked due to the First World War. - Parliament Act 1949, which amended the Parliament Act 1911 (discussed above).
The amended form of the 1911 Act has been used four times. These were:
- War Crimes Act 1991War Crimes Act 1991The War Crimes Act 1991 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It confers jurisdiction on courts in the United Kingdom to try people for war crimes committed in Nazi Germany or German-occupied territory during the Second World War by people who were not British citizens at the time, but...
, which extended jurisdiction of UK courts to acts committed on behalf of Nazi GermanyNazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
during the Second World War (the only time that the Parliament Acts have been used by a ConservativeConservative Party (UK)The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
government). - European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its long title is "An Act to amend the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1978 so as to alter the method used in Great Britain for electing Members of the European Parliament to make other amendments...
, which changed the system of elections to the European ParliamentEuropean ParliamentThe European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
from first past the post to a form of proportional representationProportional representationProportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
. - Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000The Sexual Offences Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It changed the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities from 18 to that for heterosexual and lesbian sexual activities at 16, or 17 in Northern Ireland...
, which equalised the age of consentAge of consentWhile the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
for male homosexualHomosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
sexual activities with that for heterosexual and female homosexual sexual activities at 16. - Hunting Act 2004Hunting Act 2004The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The effect of the Act is to outlaw hunting with dogs in England and Wales from 18 February 2005...
, which prohibited hare coursingHare coursingHare coursing is the pursuit of hares with greyhounds and other sighthounds, which chase the hare by sight and not by scent. It is a competitive sport, in which dogs are tested on their ability to run, overtake and turn a hare, rather than a form of hunting aiming at the capture of game. It has a...
and (subject to some exceptions) all huntingHuntingHunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
of wild mammalMammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s (particularly foxesFox huntingFox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...
) with dogs after early 2005.
The Welsh Church Act and the Government of Ireland Act were both given Royal Assent on the same day as the Suspensory Act 1914
Suspensory Act 1914
The Suspensory Act 1914 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which suspended the coming into force of two other Acts: the Welsh Church Act 1914 , and the Government of Ireland Act 1914...
, which meant that neither would come into force until after World War I.
After the Labour government came to power in 1997, there was repeated speculation that it would rely on the Parliament Acts to reverse a check from the Lords, but it did not prove necessary. The Parliament Acts were not required to enact, for example, the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No 2) Bill in 2000 (which originally proposed to give magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
s, not defendants, the choice of where an "either way
Either Way
"Either Way" is a song by The Twang, which was released as their second single under the B-Unique Records on May 28, 2007, and it is also the second single to be taken from the band's debut album Love It When I Feel Like This...
" offence would be tried) because the government abandoned the bill after a wrecking amendment
Wrecking amendment
In legislative debate, a wrecking amendment is an amendment made by a legislator who disagrees with the principles of a bill and who seeks to make it useless rather than directly opposing the bill by simply voting...
in the House of Lords. The Parliament Act was threatened to be used to get the Identity Cards Act 2006 passed through the Lords. This was backed up by a threat of an immediate introduction of a compulsory ID Card scheme. The Lords had no option but to accept a compromise of a delay in the introduction of the scheme. The Parliament Acts cannot be used to force through legislation that originated in the House of Lords, so they could not have been used to enact the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 or the Constitutional Reform Act 2005
Constitutional Reform Act 2005
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to take over the existing role of the Law Lords as well as some powers of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and removed the functions of Speaker of...
.
The first three measures for which the Act has been used since 1949 were not mentioned in manifestos, and hence in trying to veto them the Lords were not breaking the Salisbury convention
Salisbury Convention
The Salisbury Convention is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom which puts forward that the House of Lords will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto.Following a landslide Labour general election victory in...
. The Hunting Bill was mentioned in the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
manifesto for the 2001 general election
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
, so, depending upon how the convention is interpreted, the attempt to block it could be taken as a breach. However, as conventions are merely convention and not law, the House of Lords would not be taking illegal action if they were to act otherwise.
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 was repealed in entirety by the Government of Ireland Act 1920
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
, the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999
European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999
The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Its long title is "An Act to amend the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1978 so as to alter the method used in Great Britain for electing Members of the European Parliament to make other amendments...
was repealed in entirety by the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002
European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002
The European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The Act divided the United Kingdom into various regions to which were allocated a number of seats. England was divided into nine regions with a total of 71 seats, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland...
and most provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
The Sexual Offences Act 2000 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It changed the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities from 18 to that for heterosexual and lesbian sexual activities at 16, or 17 in Northern Ireland...
were repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003
Sexual Offences Act 2003
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that was passed in 2003 and became law on 1 May 2004.It replaced older sexual offences laws with more specific and explicit wording...
. While the War Crimes Act 1991
War Crimes Act 1991
The War Crimes Act 1991 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It confers jurisdiction on courts in the United Kingdom to try people for war crimes committed in Nazi Germany or German-occupied territory during the Second World War by people who were not British citizens at the time, but...
remains in force, to date only one person has been convicted under it.
The threat of the Parliament Acts has been employed by several British governments to force the Lords to accept its legislation. In at least three cases, the procedure authorised by the Parliament Act 1911, or by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, was started, but the legislation was approved by the House of Lords as a result of the government making concessions. These were:
- Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913The Temperance Act 1913 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom under which voters in small local areas in Scotland were enabled to hold a poll to vote on whether their area remained "wet" or went "dry"...
, which allowed the voters in a district to hold a poll to vote on whether their district went "dryProhibitionProhibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
" or remained "wet". - Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act 1976, which amended the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974The Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 was a UK Act of Parliament, now replaced by the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992. The 1974 Act was introduced by the Labour Government, and both repealed and replaced the Conservatives' Industrial Relations Act 1971...
to reverse changes made to that Act as it passed through Parliament. - Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that nationalised large parts of the UK aerospace and shipbuilding industries and established two corporations, British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders ....
, which nationalised large parts of the UK aerospace and shipbuilding industries and established two corporations, British AerospaceBritish AerospaceBritish Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
and British ShipbuildersBritish ShipbuildersBritish Shipbuilders Corporation was a public corporation that owned and managed the shipbuilding industry in England and Scotland from 1977 and through the 1980s...
.
Validity of the 1949 Act
Since the 1949 Act became law, doubts were raised by some legal academicsAcademia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
as to whether the use of the 1911 Act to pass the 1949 Act, which amended the 1911 Act itself, was valid. Three main concerns were raised:
- The continued ability of the House of Lords to veto a bill to prolong the life of Parliament would not be entrenched if the 1911 Act could be used to amend itself first, removing this restriction.
- The 1949 Act could be considered to be secondary legislation, since it depended for its validity on another Act, the 1911 Act; and the principle that courts will respect an Act of Parliament without enquiring into its origins (an emanation of parliamentary sovereigntyParliamentary sovereigntyParliamentary sovereignty is a concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies. In the concept of parliamentary sovereignty, a legislative body has absolute sovereignty, meaning it is supreme to all other government institutions—including any executive or judicial bodies...
) would not apply. - Under the 1911 Act, Parliament (that is, the Commons and the Lords acting together) delegated its ability to pass legislation to another body (the Commons alone). Following legal principles established when the United Kingdom granted legislative powers to assemblies in its coloniesColonial government in AmericaThe organization and structure of British colonial governments in America shared many attributes. While each of the Thirteen Colonies destined to become the United States had its own history and development, there emerged over time some common features and patterns to the structure andd...
in the late 18th century, a subordinate legislative body cannot use the Act under which legislative power was delegated to it to expand its competence without an express power to do so in the enabling Act (see Declaratory ActDeclaratory ActThe Declaratory Act was a declaration by the British Parliament in 1766 which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. The government repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face...
).
To address these concerns, a Law Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, presented a Private Member's Bill
Private Member's Bill
A member of parliament’s legislative motion, called a private member's bill or a member's bill in some parliaments, is a proposed law introduced by a member of a legislature. In most countries with a parliamentary system, most bills are proposed by the government, not by individual members of the...
in House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
in the 2000–2001 session of Parliament (the Parliament Acts (Amendment) Bill), which would have had the effect of confirming the legitimacy of the 1949 Act, but prohibiting any further such uses of the Parliament Act to amend itself, or use of it to further modify or curtail the powers of the House of Lords. Another Parliament Acts (Amendment) Bill was introduced independently by Lord Renton of Mount Harry in the next session, but neither of these Bills proceeded to a Third Reading
Parliamentary procedure
Parliamentary procedure is the body of rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of clubs, organizations, legislative bodies, and other deliberative assemblies...
.
The first legal challenge to the 1949 Act is believed to have been made during the first prosecution for war crimes under the War Crimes Act 1991, R. v. Serafinowicz, but no record of the legal arguments remains. Because a second defendant was prosecuted under the War Crimes Act, and was sentenced to life imprisonment and since the War Crimes Act was later amended by both two further acts (the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties for certain "anti-social" behaviours...
and the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996), which were passed by both Houses and received royal assent, the validity of the War Crimes Act is not under question.
The 1949 Act, and the validity of Acts made under it, were not questioned in court again until the Parliament Acts were used to pass the Hunting Act 2004. Early in 2005, the Countryside Alliance
Countryside Alliance
The Countryside Alliance is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as country sports, including hunting, shooting and angling...
took a case to court to challenge the validity of the 1949 Act. In the High Court, the wording of the 1911 Act was held not to imply any entrenchment. Support for this conclusion can be drawn from the parliamentary debates on the 1911 Act, in which an entrenchment clause
Entrenchment clause
An entrenched clause or entrenchment clause of a constitution is a provision which makes certain amendments either more difficult than others or impossible...
was considered but rejected, the Government clearly displaying the intention to be able to make such amendments if necessary. However, the 2005 decision was made on other grounds, so the question of whether the Courts could refer to the 1949 Act's Parliamentary debates under the principle established in Pepper v Hart
Pepper v Hart
Pepper v Hart [1992] UKHL 3, is a landmark decision of the House of Lords on the use of legislative history in statutory interpretation...
was not decided.
The High Court held that the 1949 Act was primary legislation
Primary legislation
Primary legislation is law made by the legislative branch of government. This contrasts with secondary legislation, which is usually made by the executive branch...
, despite being unusual in that the Courts can rule on whether the provisions of the 1911 Act are complied with. It was held that the 1911 Act clearly permits the procedures specified in the Parliament Acts to be used for "any Public Bill", and this was sufficient to dispose of the argument that the 1911 Act could not be used to amend itself. The Court took the view that the 1911 Act was a 'remodelling' of the constitution rather than a delegation of power.
The subsequent Court of Appeal
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
ruling agreed that the 1949 Act itself was valid, but left open the question of whether the Commons could use the Parliament Act to make significant changes to the constitution (for example, repealing the Parliament Act's provision prohibiting the Act from being used to extend the lifespan of Parliament). The Court of Appeal refused to give the Countryside Alliance permission to appeal their decision to the House of Lords
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
The House of Lords, in addition to having a legislative function, historically also had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachment cases, and as a court of last resort within the United Kingdom. In the latter case the House's...
; however, a petition for permission to appeal was submitted directly to the Law Lords and granted in July 2005. Argument in the case was heard on 13 and 14 July 2005 by a large committee of nine Law Lords, rather than the normal five. In a unanimous decision, the Law Lords upheld the validity of 1949 Act.
Future developments
After the "first stage" of reform of the House of Lords was implemented in the House of Lords Act 1999House of Lords Act 1999
The House of Lords Act 1999 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. The Act reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats;...
, the Wakeham Royal Commission on the proposal of a "second stage" of reform reported in January 2000. Subsequently, the government decided to take no action to change the legislative relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
In March 2006, it was reported that the then-Labour Government was considering removing the ability of the Lords to delay legislation that arises as a result of manifesto commitments (while the Lords still acted in accordance with a self-imposed restriction, the Salisbury Convention
Salisbury Convention
The Salisbury Convention is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom which puts forward that the House of Lords will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto.Following a landslide Labour general election victory in...
, which this legislation would have merely formalised), and reducing their ability to delay other legislation to a period of 60 days (although a compromise of 6 months has also been suggested). The Labour Government made no attempt to enact such changes before the 2010 general election, which Labour lost.
In May 2011, Deputy Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some counties, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, but is significantly different, though both...
Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg
Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg is a British Liberal Democrat politician who is currently the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Minister for Constitutional and Political Reform in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister...
announced the Coalition Government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
's plans to legislate for a mainly elected House of Lords. In the face of fierce opposition from the overwhelming majority of the Lords, he indicated that he would consider use of the Parliament Act.
External links
- Parliament Act 1911 at UK Statute Law DatabaseUK Statute Law DatabaseThe UK Statute Law Database is the official web-accessible database of the statute law of the United Kingdom, hosted by The National Archives. It contains all primary legislation in force as of 1991, and all primary and secondary legislation since that date; it does not include legislation which...
- Parliament Act 1949 at UK Statute Law Database