The Ecclesiastical Committee is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, created by the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 to review Church of England measures submitted to Parliament by the Legislative Committee of the General Synod.
It comprises 30 members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Lord Speaker appoints 15 members from the House of Lords, and the Speaker of the House of Commons appoints 15 MPs to serve on the committee. [1] Members are appointed to serve for the duration of a parliament.
As of 20 September 2024 [update] the post-election committee has not yet been formed. [2]
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament. The Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation.
The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is always a member or attendee of the cabinet of the United Kingdom.
The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The lord chancellor is appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Prior to the union of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. There were Lord Chancellors of Ireland until 1922.
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the lower house and primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The current speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, was elected Speaker on 4 November 2019, following the retirement of John Bercow. Hoyle began his first full parliamentary term in the role on 17 December 2019, having been unanimously re-elected after the 2019 general election.
A crossbencher is a minor party or independent member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber.
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Politics of England forms the major part of the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with England being more populous than all the other countries of the United Kingdom put together. As England is also by far the largest in terms of area and GDP, its relationship to the UK is somewhat different from that of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The English capital London is also the capital of the UK, and English is the dominant language of the UK. Dicey and Morris (p26) list the separate states in the British Islands. "England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark.... is a separate country in the sense of the conflict of laws, though not one of them is a State known to public international law." But this may be varied by statute.
The Lords Spiritual are the bishops of the Church of England who sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. Up to 26 of the 42 diocesan bishops and archbishops of the Church of England serve as Lords Spiritual. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and in Northern Ireland, which are no longer established churches, are not represented. The Lords Spiritual are distinct from the Lords Temporal, their secular counterparts who also sit in the House of Lords.
David Patrick Paul Alton, Baron Alton of Liverpool, KCSG, KCMCO is a British-Irish politician, formerly a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party and later Liberal Democrat who has sat as a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 1997 when he was made a life peer. Alton is also known for his human rights work including the co-founding of Jubilee Action, the children's charity, and serves as chair, patron or trustee of several charities and voluntary organisations.
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.
Ann Elizabeth Oldfield Butler-Sloss, Baroness Butler-Sloss, GBE, PC is a retired English judge. She was the first female Lord Justice of Appeal and was the highest-ranking female judge in the United Kingdom until 2004, when Baroness Hale was appointed to the House of Lords. Until June 2007, she chaired the inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed. She stood down from that task with effect from that date, and the inquest was conducted by Lord Justice Scott Baker.
The reform of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, has been a topic of discussion in UK politics for more than a century. Multiple governments have attempted reform, beginning with the introduction of the Parliament Act 1911 by the incumbent Liberal Government. When the Labour Party came to power in the 1997 general election, the Blair government passed the House of Lords Act 1999. On 7 November 2001 the government undertook a public consultation. This helped to create a public debate on the issue of Lords reform, with 1,101 consultation responses and numerous debates in Parliament and the media. However, no consensus on the future of the upper chamber emerged.
The Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that enables the Church of England to submit primary legislation called measures, for passage by Parliament. Measures have the same force and effect as acts of Parliament. The power to pass measures was originally granted to the Church Assembly, which was replaced by the General Synod of the Church of England in 1970 by the Synodical Government Measure 1969.
Robert James Rogers, Baron Lisvane,, FLSW is a British life peer and retired public servant. He served as Clerk of the House of Commons from October 2011 until August 2014.
Non-affiliated members of the House of Lords are peers who do not belong to any parliamentary group in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. They do not take a political party's whip, nor affiliate to the crossbench group, nor are they Lords Spiritual. Formerly, the law lords were also a separate affiliation, but their successors, if peers, are disqualified from sitting in the Lords until they no longer hold a judicial position.
The House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 was a proposed Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced to the House of Commons in June 2012 by Nick Clegg. Among other reforms, the bill would have made the House of Lords a mostly elected body. It was abandoned by the British Government in August 2012 and formally withdrawn on 3 September 2012, following opposition from within the Conservative Party.
Charles William Harley Hay, 16th Earl of Kinnoull, styled Viscount Dupplin until 2013, is a Scottish hereditary peer and Crossbench member of the House of Lords, who serves as Convenor of the Crossbench Peers.
A Church of England measure is primary legislation that is made by the General Synod of the Church of England and approved by the Parliament of the United Kingdom under section 3 of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919.
The Committee is chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss and has 30 members. 15 members are MPs appointed by Mr. Speaker and 15 members of the House of Lords appointed by the Lord Speaker.