Parliament Act
In the United Kingdom, Parliament Act refers to each of two Acts of Parliament, passed in 1911 and 1949 respectively. The first Act, the Parliament Act 1911, cut the powers of the House of Lords to interfere with and retard House of Commons legislation, asserting the supremacy of the Commons. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the second Act, the Parliament Act 1949, which reduced the power of the Lords further by cutting the time they could delay bills from two years to one.
Parliament Act 1911
The long title of the Parliament Act 1911 is "An Act to make provision with respect to the powers of the House of Lords in relation to those of the House of Commons, and to limit the duration of Parliament."
The 1911 Act stopped the Lords from vetoing any public legislation, budgets or "money bills" (dealing with taxation) that had been approved in the Commons and restricted their ability to delay other legislation to one month for money bills and two years for other public bills. The Speaker can certify a bill as a money bill: if a money bill is not passed by the Lords without amendment within one month after it is received, the bill can be presented for Royal Assent without being passed by the Lords. For other public bills, the Act originally provided that a rejected bill would become law without the consent of the Lords, if passed by the Commons in three successive sessions, providing two years elapsed between Second Reading and final passing in the Commons. The only bill they could veto was one to prolong the lifetime of a parliament.
The 1911 Act also amended the Septennial Act 1715, reducing the maximum duration of any parliament from seven years to five and provided payment for MPs.
This bill was a reaction to the clash between the Liberal government and the Lords, culminating in the so-called "People's Budget" of the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George in 1909, which proposed the introduction of a land tax based on the ideas of the American tax reformer Henry George. This would have had a major effect on large landowners and the Conservative opposition which consisted mostly of large landowners had a large majority in the Lords. Furthermore they believed that money should be raised through the introduction of tariffs on imports, thus helping British industry. They voted down the new budget. They did so, and the Liberals built on the unpopularity of the Lords to make the issue of the 1910 General Election reducing the power of the Lords. The Liberals won the election and used this mandate to introduce the Parliament Act. However the Land tax proposal was quietly dropped.
When the House of Lords attempted to stop the passage of the bill, the new Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, went to George V. The king agreed with Asquith that, if necessary, he would create 250 new Liberal peers to neutralise the Conservative majority in the Lords. The Conservative Lords then backed down.
Parliament Act 1949
The 1911 Act was amended in 1949 to reduce the power of the Lords further by cutting the time they could delay bills from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. The Lords attempted to block this change and the 1911 Act had to be used to force it through.
Some doubts have been raised as to whether this was valid, as if the restriction on the Parliament Act being used to prolong the life of Parliament were to be effective then it would have to be entrenched (as otherwise the Commons could first use the Parliament Act to abolish that part of the Parliament Act, then use the amended Parliament Act to abolish elections). However the wording of the Act implies no such entrenchment. In addition, use of the 1911 Act required a delay over three "sessions", so a special short "session" of parliament was introduced into 1948, with a King's Speech on 14 September 1948, and prorogation on 25 October.
Use of the Parliament Acts
The Parliament Acts have been used only a handful of times:
- Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913, which allowed the voters in a district to hold a poll to vote on whether their district went "dry" or remained "wet"
- Welsh Church Disestablishment Act 1914, under which the Welsh part of the Church of England was disestablished in 1920, becoming the Church in Wales
- Government of Ireland Act 1914, which establish a Home Rule government in Ireland; its implementation was blocked due to the First World War
- Parliament Act 1949, which amended the Parliament Act 1911 (discussed above)
- War Crimes Act 1991, which extending jurisdiction of UK courts to cover acts committed on behalf of Nazi Germany during the Second World War (the only time that the Parliament Acts had been used by a Conservative government)
- European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, which changed the system of elections to the European Parliament from first past the post to a form of proportional representation
- Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which equalised the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activites with that for heterosexual and lesbian sexual activites at 16.
The threat of the Parliament Acts has been employed by British governments on a number of occasions to force the Lords to accept its legislation, although the government also often makes concessions in the process. Examples include:
- Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1976
- Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977
In recent years, there has been repeated speculation that the Labour government would invoke the Parliament Acts to reverse a check from the Lords. In the event, the Parliament Acts were not used to force through the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) (No 2) Bill 2000 (which would have given magistrates, not defendants, the choice of where an "either way" offence would be tried). The Parliament Acts may be invoked in autumn 2004 to pass the Hunting Bill 2004, which would prohibit hare coursing and (subject to some exceptions) all hunting of wild mammals (particularly foxes) with dogs with effect from 2006.
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