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Unit 8: Constitutional Structure: Legislature

money bill, according to this Act, is possible when the Commons is agreed with certain points raised Notes
in the House of Lords and thereby takes the bill back from the Lords in order to incorporate that
change.
Second, in non-financial matters, it limited the power of the Lords to delay the passage of a bill for
not more than two years if the House of Commons obdurately desired to adopt it. It provided that a
bill passed by he House of Commons three times in successive sessions and each time ejected by the
Lords might be presented to the monarch for his assent provided a period of two years had elapsed
between the initial proceeding of the bill in the House of Commons and its final adoption in the
House in the third session.
Finally, it has defined the term ‘money bill’ so as to include measures relating not only to taxation but
also to audits and appropriation and authorised the Speaker of the House of Commons to decide the
issue whether a bill, in question, is money bill or not. This Act has laid down the normal term of the
House of Commons as of five years.
The Parliament Act of 1911 was a triumph of the Liberal genius; the amended act of 1949 marked the
same for the Labour party. As a result of the victory of the Labour party in the elections of 1945, the
passage became clear and the amended act of 1949 came into being. This act makes an improvement
upon the former in the sense that now the House of Lords can delay the passage of a non-money bill
for a period of one year only. It provides that a non-money bill may become law despite its being
rejected by the House of Lords if it has been passed by the House of Commons in two successive
sessions and if one year has elapsed between the date of the second reading in the first session in the
House of Commons and the final date on which the bill is passed by the House of Commons for the
second time.
The effect of these acts has been to deprive the House of Lords of any real powers in matters of
passing a bill already adopted by the House of Commons. It has confirmed the conviction of Spencer
Walpole that when a minister “consults Parliament, he consults the House of Commons,” and when
the Queen dissolves the Parliament, she “dissolves the House of Commons”. What Ramsay Muir
wrote about the Parliament Act of 1911 is applicable to the amended Act of 1949 as well that it “has
reduced the House of Lords to a definitely subordinate position. It is no longer, in any sense, a co-
ordinate authority with the House of Commons, but only a revising and delaying body; and not very
effective even for that purpose.
House of Commons

The House of Commons is not only the lower chamber of the British Parliament, it is the only powerful
wing of the King-in-Parliament. Since the monarch never makes use of his veto power and since the
wings of the House of Lords have been clipped by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, what is
called sovereignty of Parliament has really come to mean the supremacy of the House of Commons
— something that has been characterized as the ‘most characteristic institution of British democracy’.
It has also been described as the “major political body in a bicameral legislature, omnicompetent and
sovereign.”What Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1885 still holds good that the deliberations of the
Commons “are dramatic and exciting, because they do more than decide the contents of a law; they
decide the reputations and fate of men who are or want to be in ministerial office. For the cabinet is a
small group of members of Parliament who sit in and lead the Commons in legislation and the conduct
of the administration.”
Composition: The House of Commons consists of the elected representative (646 in 2005) chosen
from single-member constituencies on the basis of one adult, one-vote system. All British subjects of
either sex of above 18 years of age living in whatever part of Her Majestry’s Dominions are eligible to
vote. However, the minimum age of 21 is required to be elected to the House or serve in the Jury.
Disqualified are the lunatics, bankrupts, persons convicted of high crimes, clergymen of the established
Churches of England and Scotland and the peers of the United Kingdom, the holders of certain
offices under the Crown, holder of judicial offices, civil servants, members of the regular and armed
police services, members of the legislature of any country outside the Commonwealth and holders of
other public offices listed in the House of Commons’ Disqualifications Act of 1957.

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