Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament, in Britain, a change in the law originating in Parliament (see Parliament, British) and called a statute. Before an act receives the royal assent and becomes law, it is a bill. The equivalent in the United States is an act of Congress. An act of Parliament in Britain may be either public (of general effect), local, or private. The body of English statute law comprises all the acts passed by Parliament. The existing list opens with the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235.
A bill may be introduced in either house of Parliament, with the exception of money bills, which only the House of Commons can initiate. The House of Lords can delay fiscal bills passed by the House of Commons, but for only one month. This and other restrictions on the House of Lords were introduced in the Parliament Act of 1911. For instance, the 1911 act allows the Speaker of the House of Commons to decide what constitutes a money bill. It also allows a bill to become law without the approval of the House of Lords if the bill gets a majority of votes in the House of Commons for three successive sessions (reduced to two by the Parliament Act of 1949). No bill can be introduced more than once in a session. Sometimes Parliament prorogues, (ends one session and immediately starts another) so that a bill that has been rejected may be reintroduced without delay.
Any member of Parliament may introduce a public bill, but usually only government bills, or bills with government support, have much chance of passing into law. Public bills are debated in principle on the second and third readings, and in detail in committee or on report from committee to the whole house.
A private bill, affecting only some individual or corporation, is introduced by petition of the parties concerned, and passes through the same stages. If, however, the preamble (the introduction stating the purpose) of a private bill is not ‘proved’-that is, if the special committee to which it is referred finds that there is no evident cause for it-it is thrown out.
All acts are public unless otherwise stated. They are binding on all, and are not publicly promulgated (formally announced) because every citizen is presumed to know what is in them. Unless specified, the public acts of the United Kingdom do not apply to the crown, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands. An act may be temporary, and many temporary acts (100 or so) are renewed from year to year by the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. An act (unless it is stated to end after a definite period) remains in force in England until repealed, but in Scotland acts that have never been repealed are sometimes held to have lost their force because of lapse of time. (1)
United Kingdom Parliament
The Countries of the United Kingdom are divided into parliamentary constituencies of broadly equal population by the four Boundary Commissions. Each constituency elects a Member of Parliament(MP) to the House of Commons at General Elections and, if required, at by-elections. As of 2010 there are 650 constituencies (there were 646 before that year’s general election. Of the 650 MPs, all but one – Lady Sylvia Hermon – belong to a political party.
In modern times, all Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition have been drawn from the Commons, not the Lords. Alec Douglas-Homeresigned from his peerages days after becoming Prime Minister in 1963, and the last Prime Minister before him from the Lords left in 1902 (theMarquess of Salisbury).
One party usually has a majority in Parliament, because of the use of the First Past the Post electoral system, which has been conducive in creating the current two party system. The monarch normally asks a person commissioned to form a government simply whether it can survive in the House of Commons, something which majority governments are expected to be able to do. In exceptional circumstances the monarch asks someone to ‘form a government’ with a parliamentary minority[7] which in the event of no party having a majority requires the formation of a coalition government. This option is only ever taken at a time of national emergency, such as war-time.
It was given in 1916 to Andrew Bonar Law, and when he declined, to David Lloyd George and in 1940 to Winston Churchill. A government is not formed by a vote of the House of Commons, it is a commission from the monarch. The House of Commons gets its first chance to indicate confidence in the new government when it votes on the Speech from the Throne (the legislative programme proposed by the new government).
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