There are no legal restraints upon Parliament. It can make or change laws, change or overturn established conventions or even prolong its own life without consulting the electorate. However, it does not assert its supremacy, but bears the common law in mind and acts according to precedent.
Strictly speaking, the Parliament today consists of the Queen, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. These three institutions must all agree to pass any given legislation.
However, most everyday references to Parliament refer to the workings of the Lords and/or the Commons, with the Monarchy regarded as a separate institution. This is because even though the Queen must consent to pass a law, this consent is given as a matter of course. The last royal refusal was in 1707.
Queen Opens Parliament
The Monarchy
The role of the monarch today is primarily to symbolise the tradition and unity of the British state. Obviously the prime minister and governing party at any given time will only represent the part of the population that voted in their favour. The Queen, however, because she is non-political, belongs to everybody. Under the terms of the constitution her other roles are as follows: she is legally head of the executive, an integral part of the legislature, head of the judiciary, commander in chief of the armed forces and \
State Visit
Royal family
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In a 1988 poll, most Britons felt the Queen's most important job was to represent Britain at home and abroad; her second most important job was to set standards of good citizenship
Charles and Diana
and family life. While the Queen has indeed led an exemplary life,
her children have been criticised for their poor behaviour. Her successor and son, Prince Charles, divorced his wife, Princess Diana. Stories came out in the press alleging that they had both been having extramarital affairs. Her middle son, Andrew, also divorced his wife, Sarah Ferguson (popularly known as Fergie). Andrew and Fergie in particular were both criticised for their jet-setting lifestyles and the way they squandered money.
While the Queen is independently wealthy, much of the financial support for the Royal Family comes from the taxpayer, supposedly in recognisance of the fact that the royal family fulfils its role on behalf of the British people. This had led to great controversy in
Andrew
Prince Charles
recent years. In 1992, after Andrew and Fergie had separated, newspapers published a picture of a topless Fergie and her \Texan, lounging around a swimming pool. People were outraged because their tax money was used to support such decadence. Shortly afterwards, Charles and Diana also announced they were separating and allegations about their extramarital affairs began to appear in the press.
Criticism of the Queen's children led to a more general criticism about the monarchy and the debate came to a head in November 1992 when a fire did a great deal of damage to Windsor Castle. The government immediately offered 50 million pounds' worth of taxpayers' money to pay for repairs. The electorate was very angry: Britain was in a recession and basic things like hospitals and schools had been forced to cut their services because public money was so scarce. They thought it was very unfair that the Queen, who is incredibly wealthy and does not have to pay taxes herself, should not have to pay for at least part of the repairs. The taxpayer was already paying for the running costs of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, three other palaces, a royal yacht, a royal train and a royal plane. As a result of the controversy, the Queen offered to start paying taxes and to accept less public money to support her family. She also began to open Buckingham Palace to tourists in the summer months in order to raise money to pay for repairs. Her willingness to give in to popular demands once again endeared her to her subjects, although her children still remain quite unpopular.
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Windsor Castle
Buckingham Palace
Changing Guards
A less well known role of the Queen, which is nevertheless very important to British politics, is that of a confidante to the Prime Minister. Every Tuesday the Prime Minister attends the Queen privately at Buckingham Palace. In her 40 years on the throne, the Queen has had weekly chats with 9 different Prime Ministers and they have said that her long experience and her political neutrality make her a good source of informed observation on the day to day problems of governance.
Interestingly, it is said that the Queen gets on much better with Labour Prime Ministers than with Conservative Prime Ministers
The House of Lords
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Below the Queen is the House of Lords. It consists of the Lords Spiritual, who are the Archbishops and most prominent bishops of the Church of England; and the Lords Temporal, which refers to everyone else. Lords, usually called peers, are not elected and are not considered to represent anyone besides themselves. They sit in the Lords either because they have inherited the seat from their forefathers (peerages can only be passed through the male line) or because they have been appointed by the sovereign, at the suggestion of the Prime Minister (a practice created in 1958). These latter are called life peers. Because peers are appointed or given the right by their birth into a particular family, in Parliament they speak and vote as individuals, not as representatives of the greater
interests
of of
the course
country—although
Big Ben
civic-minded peers do try to serve their country rather than their own interests. Unlike those
who serve in the House of Commons, they do not receive
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salaries and many do not attend Parliament at all. In 1993 there were 1 213 Lords: 776 were hereditary peers, 391 were life peers,20 were Law Lords (a special group chosen to assist the House in its judicial duties) and the remainder were Lords Spiritual. Only 375 on average regularly attended the sittings.
Nowadays the composition of the House of Lords is seen as being both sexist and elitist because of the way the majority of peerages are passed down through aristocratic patrilineal lines. It is very likely that efforts will be made to reform the House of Lords to make it a more effective and modern institution in the next decade.
Finally, there is the House of Commons which currently consists of about 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected by the people to represent them. MPs represent voters in a particular area, known as a constituency or seat. The number of seats varies a little bit because of changes in the population. MPs are only allowed to sit for the lifetime of the parliament, that is, the length of time between General Elections when a new set of MPs is elected. However, MPs
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