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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.
Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, for many centuries it had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers and for impeachments, and as a court of last resort in the United Kingdom and prior, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of England.
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.
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 allowed ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
The privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days before and after a parliamentary session.
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.
In British politics, parliamentary select committees can be appointed from the House of Commons, like the Foreign Affairs Select Committee; from the House of Lords, like the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; or as a joint committee of Parliament drawn from both, such as the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Committees may exist as "sessional" committees – i.e. be near-permanent – or as "ad-hoc" committees with a specific deadline by which to complete their work, after which they cease to exist, such as the Lords Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change.
The Committee for Privileges and Conduct was a select committee of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom which considered issues relating to the privileges of the House of Lords and its members, as well as having oversight for its members' conduct.
Angela Felicity Harris, Baroness Harris of Richmond, is a Liberal Democrat life peer and formerly a Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.
A grand committee has a different meaning in different countries. For example, in Finland, the Grand Committee is a committee of the Parliament of Finland. In the United Kingdom Grand Committees are made up of all MPs from each of the constituent countries.
The Constitution Committee is a cross-party select committee of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The committee's remit is "to examine the constitutional implications of all public bills coming before the House; and to keep under review the operation of the constitution". There is no consolidated written constitution in the United Kingdom, but the committee has defined the constitution as "the set of laws, rules and practices that create the basic institutions of the state, and its component and related parts, and stipulate the powers of those institutions and the relationship between the different institutions and between those institutions and the individual".
The Procedure Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to consider the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business. The committee is governed by Standing Order number 147, which sets out its remit, powers, and the number of members.
An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament in Westminster, London.
Erskine May is a parliamentary authority originally written by British constitutional theorist and Clerk of the House of Commons, Thomas Erskine May.
Impeachment is a process in which the Parliament of the United Kingdom may prosecute and try individuals, normally holders of public office, for high treason or other crimes and misdemeanours. First used to try William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer during the English Good Parliament of 1376, it was a rare mechanism whereby Parliament was able to arrest and depose ministers of the Crown. The last impeachment was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville in 1806; since then, other forms of democratic scrutiny have been favoured and the process has been considered as an obsolete—but still extant—power of Parliament.
The House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, previously just the International Relations Committee, is a select committee of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the Committee is to "consider the United Kingdom's international relations". The committee was recommended by the House of Lords Liaison Committee in its report on 29 October 2015 and agreed by the House on 10 November 2015.
A joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is a joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, formed to examine a particular issue, whose members are drawn from both the House of Commons and House of Lords. It is a type of Parliamentary committee of the United Kingdom.
The Conduct Committee is a select committee of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It has a remit oversee the Codes of Conduct and coordinate with the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards. The committee was established in May 2019 when the Committee for Privileges and Conduct was split into the Conduct Committee and the Procedure and Privileges Committee.
References
- ↑ "Procedure and Privileges Committee - membership". UK Parliament.