The British Parliament: Origins and development

The regime was losing mass support, and the support of the merchants and bourgeoisie was not enough for they formed a minority of the population. The Spanish war, popular with the merchants so far, was becoming injurous to trade, and its costs were prohibitive; in the form of taxes they heavily fell upon the shoulders of the masses. There was famine that lasted from 1658 to 1661. [3, pp. 108-109]

3.5 The Restoration of the Monarchy in Britain (1660-1688)

3.5.1 The First Political Parties - the Whigs and the Tories

When in 1658 Cromwell died, the Protectorate, as his republican administration was called, collapsed. By that time some of the traits that characterized monarchy had been restored in England. The offer of the crown that Cromwell refused and of hereditary title that he had not refused (his son Richard, however, was so far inferior to him in intelligence and will-power that he very soon lost every claim to the title) were sure signs, as well as the tendency to restore the House of Lords. The peasant movement in the country-side was growing. The upper layers of the bourgeoisie were badly scared. In the face of the growing democratic movement both the Independents and the Presbyterians were inclined to see eye to eye with the emboldened royalists when it came to debating whether monarchy should be restored. The Army was no longer the monolithic organization it used to have been; a group of generals joined the nobles and the upper layers of the bourgeoisie, the Parliament of 1660 that was convened to settle the issue had the royalists in the majority so it decided that power was to belong to the king, the lords and the commons.

In May 1660 Charles II was crowned. The Restoration showed that the nobles and the upper layers of the bourgeoisie could not do without monarchy in the face of the growing democratic movement. It also showed that the democratic forces, demoralized in the years of Cromwell's Protectorate, were too weak and disorganized to resist the restoration of monarchy. [3, p.110]

When Charles II returned to England as the publicly accepted king, the laws and Acts of Cromwell's government were automatically cancelled. Charles managed his return with skill. Although Parliament was once more as weak as it had been in the time of James I and Charles I, the new king was careful to make peace with his father's enemies. Only those who had been responsible for his father's execution were punished. Many Parliamentarians were given positions of authority or responsibility in the new monarchy. But Parliament itself remained generally weak.

Charles shared his father's belief in divine right. He hoped to make peace between the different religious groups. He wanted to allow Puritans and Catholics who disliked the Anglican Church to meet freely. But Parliament was strongly Anglican, and would not allow this. Before the Civil War, Puritans looked to Parliament for protection against the king. Now they hoped that the king would protect them against Parliament.

Charles himself was attracted to the Catholic Church. Parliament knew this and was always afraid that Charles would become a Catholic. For this reason Parliament passed the Test Act in 1673, which prevented any Catholic from holding public office. Fear of Charles's interest in the Catholic Church and of the monarchy becoming too powerful also resulted in the first political parties in Britain.

One of these parties was a group of MPs who became known as "Whigs", a rude name for cattle drivers. The Whigs, the City financiers, merchants and landowners turned bourgeois, were for limiting the power of the crown and extending that of Parliament. They were opposed to Catholicism as they connected it with an absolute monarchy. They also wanted to have no regular or "standing" army. In spite of their fear of a Catholic king, the Whigs believed strongly in allowing religious freedom. Because Charles and his wife had no children, the Whigs feared that the crown would go to Charles's Catholic brother, James. They wanted to prevent this, but they were undecided over who they did want as king.

The Whigs were opposed by another group, nicknamed "Tories", an Irish name for thieves. The Tories, the biggest landowners and Anglican clergy, upheld the authority of the Crown and the Church, and were natural inheritors of the "Royalist" position. The Whigs were not against the Crown, but they believed that its authority depended upon the consent of Parliament. As natural inheritors of the "Parliamentarian" values of twenty years earlier, they felt tolerant towards the new Protestant sects which the Anglican Church so disliked. These two parties, the Whigs and Tories, became the basis of Britain's two-party parliamentary system of government. [4, pp.93-94]

3.5.2 The Glorious Revolution of 1688

The struggle over Catholicism and the Crown became a crisis when news was heard of a Catholic plot to murder Charles and put his brother James on the throne. In fact the plan did not exist. The story had been spread as a clever trick to frighten people and to make sure that James and the Catholics did not come to power. The trick worked. Parliament passed an Act forbidding any Catholic to be a member of either the Commons or the Lords. It was not successful, however, in preventing James from inheriting the crown. Charles would not allow any interference with his brother's divine right to be king. The Stuarts might give in on matters of policy, but never on matters of principle. [10, p. 182]

James II became king after his brother's death in 1685. The Tories and Anglican were delighted, but not for long. James had already shown his dislike of Protestants while he had been Charles's governor in Scotland. This period is still remembered in some parts of Scotland as the "killing times". James then tried to remove the laws which stopped Catholics from taking positions in government and Parliament. He also tried to bring back the Catholic Church, and allow it to exist beside the Anglican Church. But Parliament was very angry, particularly the Tories and Anglicans who had supported him against the Whigs.

In spite of their anger, Tories, Whigs and Anglicans did nothing because they could look forward to the succession of James's daughter, Mary. Mary was Protestant and married to the Protestant ruler of Holland, William of Orange. But this hope was destroyed with the news in June 1688 that James's son had been born. The Tories and Anglicans now joined the Whigs in looking for a Protestant rescue. In June 1688 an invitation was sent by the whig-and-tory alliance to William of Orange to invade Britain.

It was a dangerous thing for him to do, but he was already at war with France and he needed the help of Britain's wealth and armed forces. At this important moment James's determination failed him. It seemed he actually had some kind of mental breakdown. His adherents deserted to the side of William. James was left without the army support and in December 1688 he left for France. William entered London, but the crown was offered only to Mary. William said he would leave Britain unless he also became king. Parliament had no choice but to offer the crown to both William and Mary.

However, while William had obtained the crown, Parliament had also won an important point. After he had fled from England, Parliament had decided that James II had lost his right to the crown. It gave as its reason that he had tried to undermine "the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between King and People". [4, pp.94-95]

The fact that Parliament made William king, not by inheritance but by their choice, was revolutionary. The easy and comparatively bloodless change was called "The Glorious Revolution" by bourgeois historians. It was naturally not a revolution but a change of government. Now the supreme power belonged to Parliament where the House of Lords was important again; the democratic movement was suppressed and the king was obedient. A special Convention that assumed the rank of Parliament met to draw up a Declaration of Rights where the principles of the Great Charter were repeated in a modernized form. Though the king's power was unchallenged in every other respect, he was practically deprived of any power over the army and court of law. He was not supposed to repeal laws or break them, neither was he entitled to any financial liberty. The Parliament was to meet regularly every three years.

The so called "Glorious Revolution" was actually a culmination of the compromise between the top layers of the bourgeoisie and the landed aristocracy. The old seemingly preserved institutions of monarchy, the royal court, the House of Lords and other feudal-born and feudal-shaped affairs had a new substance in them. It was no longer feudal monarchy, it was bourgeois monarchy. Though it was the aristocracy that retained the titles, honours and posts, the country was to be run in the interests of both "upper-dog" classes. The "Bill of Rights" of 1689 stated the main ideas of the constitutional monarchy with the legislative power in the Parliament's hands, the king having no rights to refuse signing the bills proposed by it or decide on creating a standing army. Still, so far the Parliament was not yet all-powerful, the executive power remained with the king; the protestant non-conformists were given religious liberty by the so-called "Toleration Act" while Catholics and all sorts of dissenters were not allowed to occupy government posts or teach at Universities. The succession was no longer determined by hereditary right but by an Act of Parliament.

William of Orange died in 1702 and in accordance with the stipulations of 1689 compromise his wife's sister and daughter of James II, Anne was crowned (1702-1714). Then another daughter of James II was to reign, and in the event of her death without an heir a Hanover Prince, the husband of the next protestant heiress, grand-daughter of James I Stuart, was to get the throne of England. [3, pp.113-114]

The Stuart monarchs, from James I onwards, were less successful than the Tudors. They quarreled with Parliament and this resulted in civil war. The only king of England ever to be tried and executed was a Stuart. The republic that followed was even more unsuccessful, and by popular demand the dead king's son was called back to the throne. Another Stuart king was driven from the throne by his own daughter and her husband. For the first time the king was elected by Parliament in 1688. Parliament was then beyond question more powerful than the king, and would remain so. Its power over monarch was written into the Bill of Rights in 1689. When the last Stuart, Queen Anne, died in 1714, the monarchy was no longer absolutely powerful. It had become a "parliamentary monarchy" controlled by a constitution. [4, p.87]

4. The Modern British Parliament

4.1 The British Parliament Today

Great Britain is known as Mother of Parliaments. This is because in the Western world she was the first to introduce a workable body, an assembly of elected representatives of the people with the authority to resolve social and economic problems by free debate leading to the making of law.

Parliament is one of the oldest and most honored parts of the British government. One of the fundamental principles of the unwritten constitution is the sovereignty of Parliament. It means that Parliament has unlimited power in the legislative and the executive spheres and there is no institution that can declare its acts unconstitutional. [12, p.90]

The main functions of Parliament are as follows: to pass laws, to provide the means of carrying on the work of Government, to control the Government policy and administration, to debate the most important political issues of the day. Nevertheless, the principal duty of Parliament is legislation. [16, p.93]

Parliament is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom. It is free to make, unmake or alter any laws it wishes; to destroy established conventions or turn a convention into binding law. It could even prolong its own life beyond the normal period of five years without consulting the electorate. In practice, however, Parliament does not assert its supremacy in this way. Its members bear in mind the common law which has grown up over the centuries, and have tended to act in accordance with precedent and tradition. [13, p.56]

History knew “short” and “long” parliament (the “short” lasted two weeks, the “long” 19 years) but since 1911 every parliament is limited to a five-year term of work, although it may be dissolved and a general election held before the end of this term. The work of Parliament is divided into sessions. Every session begins at the end of October or beginning of November and lasts 36 weeks up to late August. Annual opening of Parliament by the Queen is a traditional ceremony, very beautiful and pompous. [14, p.105]

There are three elements of the British Parliament - the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament (the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons). These elements are outwardly separate, constituted on different principles, and they meet together only on occasions of symbolic significance, such as a coronation, or the State Opening of Parliament when the Commons are summoned by the Queen to the House of Lords. [17, p.55]

The House of Lords appeared first as King's council of the nobility. The House of Commons originated later, in the second half of the 14^th century, and “Commons” were representatives of different local communities who were summoned to provide the King with money. The more a king demanded, the more the Commons questioned its use. Because of its financial power, its ability to raise or withhold money, the House of Commons gained power not only in matters of finance but also legislation over both the monarch and also the Lords. So the dynamic power of Parliament lies in the House of Commons.

The Houses work in different places, in the opposite parts of Westminster Palace, but their debating Chambers are shaped in the same way which is vitally important. The arrangement of seats in both Houses is of great significance, reflects and maintains the two-party system of Britain. [14, p.106]

Both Houses are rectangular (not semicircular as most European Chambers) in shape and have at one end the seat of the Speaker, in front of the Table of the House, and at the other end a technical barrier. The benches of members run the length of the chamber on both sides. Intersected by a gang-way, the benches face each other across a broad area known as the “floor of the House”. The benches to the right of the Speaker are used by the Government and its supporters; those to the left belong to the Opposition, and members of any other parties. In the House of Lords there are also the bishops' benches and a number of cross-benches for peers who do not attach themselves to any party. Leaders of the Government and the Opposition sit on the front benches of their respective sides to the Speaker's seat. The back-benchers, the ordinary members of Parliament, sit behind them, occupying the seats behind the front benches. [13, p.57]

Each House enjoys certain rights and immunities to protect them in carrying out their duties. They are freedom of speech in debates, freedom from arrest, the right of access to the crown (collective privilege for the Commons and individual for peers). The Commons have the right to exclude (disqualify) an MP and declare his seat vacant. [16, p.122]

The proceedings in both Houses are public and visitors are admitted into the “strangers' gallery”. The number of visitors is limited to about 200, no cards or passes are required, but metal-control check is necessary. “First come, first go” principle works in both galleries. Since 1803 the proceedings of Parliament have been published the following day as “Hansard”. Luke Hansard was the first to publish reports on Parliamentary procedures. His name first appeared on papers in 1943. Since then the paper carries the name. Proceeding of both Houses are also now televised, the Lords since 1984 and the Commons since 1989. [14, p.107]

4.2 The House of Commons

The House of Commons today is an elected House with a nation-wide representation. Of its 650 Members 523 represent constituencies in England, 38 in Wales, 72 in Scotland and 17 in Northern Ireland. When speaking about the British Parliament, the House of Commons is usually meant. “MP” is addressed only to the members of the House of Commons. When speaking about General election, election to the House of Commons is meant. So this House is the centre of real political power and activity, most of its members being professional politicians, lawyers, economists, etc. [16, p.121]

The party that has won the general election makes up the majority in the House of Commons, and forms the Government. The party with the next largest number of members in the House, or sometimes a combination of other parties, forms the official Opposition, and Leader of the Opposition is a recognized post in the House of Commons.

The MPs sit on two sides of the hall, one side for the governing party and the other for the opposition. In the Commons debating chamber there are seats for only 437 MPs. But except on matters of great interest and importance the presence of all members is not necessary. 40 MPs is enough to make up a quorum. [18, p.40]

One of the most important members in the House of Commons, the chief officer, is the Speaker who despite his name is the one who actually never speaks. The Speaker is the Chairman or presiding MP of the House of Commons. He is elected by a vote of the House at the beginning of each new Parliament to preside over the House and enforce the rules of order. He cannot debate or vote. He votes only in case of a tie, that is when voting is equal and, in this case he votes with Government. The main job of the Speaker is to maintain strict control over debates, to keep fair play between the parties, the government and the opposition, between the back-benchers and front-benchers. The Speaker is responsible for the orderly conduct of business, and is required to act with scrupulous impartiality between Members in the House. [13, p.48]

Inside Parliament, in the House of Commons, party control is exercised by officers known as “Whips”. The whips are party functioneers, party managers, who receive special salaries for their duties. They arrange each day programme in Parliament and tell MPs when they must attend debates. They inform, instruct, dictate and enforce the views of the front-benchers (the Government) on the back-benchers. The strict party discipline obliges them to follow the instructions of the whips. [14, p.107-109]

There are Government and Opposition Whips in both Houses of Parliament, but the Whips in the Lords are less exclusively concerned with party matters. On the Government side of the Commons the Chief Whip is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. There are other Government Whips, including the Deputy Chief Whip and five Assistant Whips. The Government Chief Whip, who is directly answerable to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House of Commons, is responsible for working out the details of the Government's programme of business, for estimating the time required for each item, and for arranging the business of the individual sittings. [17, pp.57-58]

4.3 The House of Lords

The House of Lords appeared first as King's council consisting of Lords and barons. Now the House is a partly hereditary upper chamber. It comprises 26 Lords Spiritual (two of which are archbishops of Canterbury and York, the rest senior bishops of Church of England), 92 Lords Temporal (lay peers). Law Lords (senior judges) also sit as Lords Temporal. Up to 1958, the Lords Temporal were all either hereditary peers or Law Lords. In 1958, however, the Life Peerages Act was passed, which entitled the Queen to give non-hereditary titles or life peerages to both men and women. The Queen exercises this prerogative on the advice of the Prime Minister. A new Appointments Commission has operated a nomimations system for cross-bench peers since 2000. Since the House of Lords Act of 1999, only 92 peers sit by virtue of hereditary peerage, 75 of whom were elected by their respective party groups. The remaining 17 are office holders or have ceremonial offices. The total number of persons thus qualified to sit in the House of Lords is in excess of 670. [13, p.65]

The Speaker of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor's powers as Speaker are very limited compared with those of the Speaker of the House of Commons, since the Lords themselves control the proceedings and maintain order in their House. Lord Chancellor is a government officer, responsible for the administration of justice and an automatic member of the Cabinet.

The Lord Chancellor sits on a special seat called the Woolsack. The Woolsack was introduced by King Edward III in the 14^th century and originally stuffed with English wool as a reminder of England's traditional source of wealth - the wool trade - and a sign of prosperity. Today the Woolsack is stuffed with wool from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to symbolize unity.

There are also a number of other office holders in the House of Lords. These include ministers, government whips, the Leader and Chief Whip of the main opposition party, and two Chairmen of Committees. These office holders and officers, together with the Law Lords, receive salaries. All other members of the House of Lords are unpaid, but they are entitled to reimbursement of their expenses, within maximum limits for each day on which they attend the House. The Clerk of the Parliaments is head of the administration. [18, pp.44-45]

Almost a century ago the Lords had the power of absolute veto over any legislation passed by the House of Commons. After a great struggle this was finally abolished by the Parliament Act of 1911. But it left the Lords with the power to delay a bill for two years and since 1949 the period reduced to one year. After one year the bill is passed even without the Lords agreement.

Of all the parliaments in the world, the lowest quorum needed to adopt a decision is the House of Lords. Three Lords present will make a quorum and will be capable to take any decision. Lords are far freer to vote according to their own convictions rather than party policy than are Members of the House of Commons. [15, p.79]

4.4 The Work of Parliament

Each parliamentary session begins with the “State Opening of Parliament”, a ceremonial occasion when the Queen announces the programme of the work of Parliament for the coming session.

After brief opening formalities the working day of Parliament begins with Question Time, lasting about an hour. Ministers are asked from 40 to 70 questions on any points MPs choose. But questions should be handed to the officials of the House at least 48 hours beforehand. The answer to the question is prepared for the ministers by civil servants. There is no means of compelling a minister to give a truthful answer. Naturally, both the Government and Opposition use this period to reveal the weaknesses of their opponents. A minister and his staff preparing answers should anticipate what questions may be asked. On two afternoons each week the Prime Minister is to answer questions on general policy matters.

After the Question Time the House of Commons goes on to the main debate of the day to which it can give six or more hours. It often concerns a broad issue of foreign or home policy, or it may be the examination of the contents of a bill, as Parliament's unique and overriding function is the making of laws. The starting point is the drafting of a bill. The preparation of the text of the bill takes many months with long consultations involving civil-servant and legal experts. [19, p.81]

The process of passing a Bill is the same in the House of Lords as in the House of Commons. On introduction the Bill receives a formal First Reading. The Bill is not printed yet. The Clerk of the House reads out only the short title of the Bill, and the Minister responsible for it names a day for a Second Reading. It is then printed and published.

After a period of time, which varies between one or several weeks, depending on the nature of the Bill, it may be given a Second Reading as a result of a debate on its general merits or principles. It is then referred to one of the Standing Committees, or, if necessary, to the whole House sitting in Committee (if the House so decides), where each clause in the Bill is considered and voted on.

Finally the Bill is submitted for a Third Reading. At this purely formal stage the Bill is reviewed in its final form which includes the amendments made at earlier stages and, if passed, it is sent on from the Commons to the Lords or from the Lords to the Commons, depending on its place of origin, where it enters on the same course again.

All Bills which have passed through their various parliamentary stages are sent to the Sovereign for Royal Assent (approval), which is automatically given by Royal Commission. After this the Bill becomes law and is known as Act of Parliament. [20, pp.93-94]

Conclusion

Summing up it must be said that the marked strengthening of royal power under the Plantagenet kings late in the 12^th с. and early in the 13^th с. caused dissatisfaction not only among the broad peasant masses but also among all the strata of the ruling class. The succeeding Plantagenet kings squeezed the country dry forgetting about traditional customs, norms and laws and imposing all sorts of taxes on feudal lords and cities alike. The barons were determined to fight the king, so in 1213 they stormed the king's fortresses with an army of knights leading their vassals. The London top layers supported them and opened the gates of London thus bringing about John the Lackland's capitulation, and on June 15, 1215 the Great Charter was signed. Most of its articles deal with immunity of the barons and the church possessions; the controlling organ, a committee of 24 barons, was nothing but a weapon in the hands of the baronial oligarchy. Some limitations were imposed that restricted the barons' arbitrary treatment of the knights, measures were introduced to consolidate the positions of the merchants and knights in their commercial activities, of the towns, foreign merchants, etc.

By insisting on the freedom of merchants from arbitrary taxation the Charter marked the alliance between the barons and the citizens of London, but it excluded from any benefit the overwhelming mass of the people who were still in the villeinage.

Under Henry III the barons and bishops had grounds to protest against the way the king violated the stipulations of the Charter. The knights and the top of the burgesses, the petty and middle clergy also showed their dissatisfaction. So the feudal magnates met in Oxford in 1258 to work out a new system of governing the state. Since they were armed, and accompanied by armed knights, the sort of parliament speeches that were heard, made the gathering a wild parliament indeed. But the complex system of state machinery they devised (Oxford provisions) implied only unlimited baronial power and left the knights stranded, so the Westminster provisions devised by the knights, in their turn, limited the barons' privileges with reference to their vassals. When a number of barons agreed to that, a compromise was achieved between those strata of the ruling class. It found political expression in the Parliament that Simon de Montfort convened in 1265. It included two barons from each county and two townsmen from each town. It was the beginning of the division of the English Parliament into two houses: the House of Lords (the upper chamber, composed of the representatives of aristocracy and the Church) and the House of Commons (the lower chamber, composed of the representatives of common people). For a long time, the upper chamber had more power, but with the decline of feudalism the influence of the House of Commons was growing. When Simon de Montfort and his army were defeated and Henry III reassumed power, both he and his son Edward I convened Parliament in the pre-Montfort baronial form but in 1295 Edward had to include the wider representation of knights and burgesses which confirmed the status of England as feudal monarchy with class representation.

In the course of the 14^th century Parliament split into two houses. The development of Parliament at this time showed the beginnings of a new relationship between the middle class and the king. The alliance between esquires and merchants made Parliament more powerful, and separated the Commons more and more from the Lords. During the Tudor period (1485-1603) the changes in government, society and the economy of England were more far-reaching than they had been for centuries. The Tudor monarchs did not like governing through Parliament. Henry VII had used Parliament only for law making. Tudor monarchs were certainly not more democratic than earlier kings, but by using Parliament to strengthen their policy, they actually increased Parliament's authority. In the early 16^th century Parliament only met when the monarch ordered it. Sometimes it met twice in one year, but then it might not meet again for six years. In the first forty-four years of Tudor rule Parliament met only twenty times. During the century power moved from the House of Lords to the House of Commons. The reason for this was simple. The Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Commons represented richer and more influential classes than the Lords. Until the end of the Tudor period Parliament was supposed to do three things: agree to the taxes needed; make the laws which the Crown suggested; and advise the Crown, but only when asked to do so. Parliament naturally began to think it had a right to discuss these questions. By the end of the 16^th century it was beginning to show new confidence, and in the 17^th century, when the gentry and merchant classes were far more aware of their own strength, it was obvious that Parliament would challenge the Crown.

The Stuart monarchs, from James I onwards, were less successful than the Tudors. They quarreled with Parliament and this resulted in civil war. In 1628 the Parliament opposition uniting the bourgeoisie and the gentry scored a victory: the king was made to sign a document limiting his power, the so-called Petition of Right. In June 1645 the Parliament army under the Cromwell's command defeated the Royalists at Naseby. After the execution of Charles I in February of 1649 the House of Lords was abolished and England was proclaimed a Republic ruled by Parliament. But Parliament was dissolved in 1653. England was to be ruled by a council of officers who established military dictatorship and Cromwell was solemnly declared its Protector. Actually it meant the abolition of the republic and the end of the bourgeois revolution in England. From 1653 Britain was governed by Oliver Cromwell alone.

After the death of Cromwell the monarchy was restored in England in 1660. The "Bill of Rights" of 1689 stated the main ideas of the constitutional monarchy with the legislative power in the Parliament's hands, the king having no rights to refuse signing the bills proposed by it or decide on creating a standing army. The succession was no longer determined by hereditary right but by an Act of Parliament. England had become a "parliamentary monarchy" controlled by a constitution.

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