The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the sovereign (Crown-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Both houses of Parliament meet in separate chambers at the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the inner boroughs of the capital city, London.
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 the two Acts are to be construed as one.
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands and Liechtenstein which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.
The House of Lords Act 1999 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats ; the Act removed such a right. However, as part of a compromise, the Act did permit ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House on an interim basis. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
The parliamentary committees of the United Kingdom are committees of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Each consists of a small number of Members of Parliament from the House of Commons, or peers from the House of Lords, or a mix of both, appointed to deal with particular areas or issues; most are made up of members of the Commons. The majority of parliamentary committees are select committees. The remit of these committees vary depending on whether they are committees of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
Certain governments in the United Kingdom have, for more than a century, attempted to find a way to reform the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This process was started by the Parliament Act 1911 introduced by the then Liberal Government which stated:
...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
The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (LRRA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was enacted to replace the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (RRA). The Act was and remains very controversial, because of a perception that it is an Enabling Act substantially removing the ancient British constitutional restriction on the Executive introducing and altering laws without assent or scrutiny by Parliament, and it has been called the "Abolition of Parliament Act".
Transition to war (TTW) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military term referring to a period of international tension during which government and society move to an open war footing. The period after this is considered to be war, conventional or otherwise, but the term TTW found its origins in the peak of the Cold War as a key NATO concept within the tripwire escalation of the DEFCON status. This could include the suspension of peacetime services, closing motorways to all but military traffic and the internment of subversives without charge or trial.
In the United Kingdom an act of Parliament is primary legislation passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
In the UK and certain other Commonwealth countries, King's Consent is a parliamentary convention under which crown consent is sought whenever a proposed parliamentary bill will affect the crown's own prerogatives or interests. Prince's Consent is a similar doctrine, under which consent of the Prince of Wales must be obtained for matters relating to the Duchy of Cornwall.
The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It created the offence of child destruction. The Act retains three sections, the most substantive legal changes of which are in the first section.
The Perth Agreement was made in Australia in 2011 by the prime ministers of the sixteen states known as Commonwealth realms, which at the time all recognised Elizabeth II as their head of state. The document agreed that the governments of the realms would amend their laws concerning the succession to their shared throne and related matters. The changes, in summary, comprised:
The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom introduced in July 2013. The bill was sponsored by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). It was often referred to as "The Lobbying Bill" for short. It passed all parliamentary stages, and received royal assent on 30 January 2014.
The Armed Forces Act 2011 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Single Source Regulations Office (SSRO) is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom responsible for overseeing and monitoring the Single Source Procurement Framework established by Part 2 of the Defence Reform Act 2014. Its role is to monitor the level of profit that the Ministry of Defence pays out to its contractors when contracts are not tendered competitively.
The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provides both for repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, and for parliamentary approval to be required for any withdrawal agreement negotiated between the Government of the United Kingdom and the European Union. The bill's passage through both Houses of Parliament was completed on 20 June 2018 and it became law by Royal Assent on 26 June.
The European Union Act 2017 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to empower the Prime Minister to give to the Council of the European Union the formal notice – required by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union – for starting negotiations for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. It was passed following the result of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum held on 23 June in which 51.9% of voters voted to leave the European Union.
The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019, commonly referred to as the Cooper–Letwin Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made provisions for extensions to the period defined under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union related to the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. It was introduced to the House of Commons by Labour MP Yvette Cooper and Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin on 3 April 2019, in an unusual process where the Government of the United Kingdom did not have control over Commons business that day.
The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in December 2020. It is concerned with trade within the UK, as the UK is no longer subject to EU regulations. The act seeks to prevent internal trade barriers among the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, and to restrict the way that certain legislative powers of the devolved administrations can operate in practice.
