Explain Why The House Of Lords Should Be Abolished In The Uk

In theory the House of Commons is the dominant chamber as it is elected while the House of Lords plays more of a revising role, issues to be considered include the powers of each chambers, the fact the House of Lords is more independently minded and the impact of the whips. It will ultimately be argued that the House of Commons remains far more effective due to having greater powers in checking the government power.

Any proposed amendments by the House of Lords have to be approved by the House of Commons, as this is where the government dominates, which can mean no amendments go through.

Furthermore, party control in the House of Commons does not necessarily limit the effectiveness of parliament in performing its main functions, as for the House of Lords, there is no democratic legitimacy or popular authority, and therefore as are unelected, most peers hold specialist

The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament and is independent to the Commons although it complements the work of the Commons. Members of the Lords play a vital role in scrutiny, there are two main reasons for this, the first being that they are independent to the Commons and in many ways have increased power which they often use to stand up to the Commons by blocking reforms. Lords also have a better balance of parties so no government has a majority. The Government however can override Lords by using Parliament Act; this was used when the fox hunting ban was being put through under Blair’s government as there were too many in opposition of the ban in the House of Lords. The Parliament Acts, although rarely used, provide a way of solving disagreement between the Commons and the Lords. The Parliament Act of 1949 also prevents Lords from delaying bills for more than one year.

Nonetheless, scrutiny is not the only role of Parliament, as most people recognise it for its legislative function, to make legislation legitimate as the primary law making body. As Parliament is acting on behalf of the electorate, the House of Commons has become the more dominant chamber in Parliament. Although bills can start in either chamber, the Commons is where the majority of legislation is introduced, and it passes over 100 bills each year. However, the bills do not just go through to the Royal Ascent easily, the House of Lords stands in place to review and amend the white papers sent through from the House of Commons, for example the amendment of the Terror bill in 2005. Moreover, the Lords are also able to reject bills that it redeems unsuitable for example the previous Labour government’s proposal of national ID cards. The input from the House of Lords into the law making process is extremely valuable as it consists of experts in many different fields including medicine (Lord Winston) and business (Lord Sugar).

With democracy on the incline and other countries catching up to where the UK once lead it can be argued that parliament does not carry out its functions adequately. Many would say there are not enough checks and balances on the government to insure its parliament is run legitimately being argued that a cross on a ballot paper every four years is hardly a true expression of our will. Current circumstances have lead to his enquiry of the people, most significantly the freedom of information act 2000 introduced by Blair’s government allowing transparency and putting the government under some scrutiny resulted in the daily telegraphy uncovering the expense

Where they will go through the same process as to the House of Commons, but, when they have done the third reading the bill will go through the consideration of amendments. This is where the house of lords makes any changes to the bill, then the bill has to go back to the house of commons so they can approve it before it goes to the queen. However, if both houses cannot come to any agreement, the house of commons will get the say, because they have more power than the house of lords. Finally, the last stage is Royal Assent, where the crown formally assents to the bill in order for it to become a law.

The supremacy of European Union is not the only development that has undermined the UK supremacy of parliamentary sovereignty. There are recent developments of Human Right Law and the devolution of Scottish and Wales Assembly which has greatly weaken the traditional notion of parliament being supreme in UK. Seemingly, the supremacy of European Union is the pillar of all members of the union

In the Parliament is the Senate and the House of Commons. The House of Commons has 301 seats. Every five years new seats are taken. The members of the House of Commons debate on a bill and decide if it should be passed or not.

The first reason I am going to bring forward is that this new budget included the idea of taxation on the rich for money that would go to support the poor. A position in the House of Lords was inherited; this meant that the peers in the House of Lords were all relations with inherited wealth. This meant that the people the Budget targeted included the peers in the House of Lords; they

The highest rank court is the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights. Below this, yet the highest and most powerful ranked in the United Kingdom, is the House of Lords also recognised as the Supreme Courts since 2009. The decisions of this court are binding on all other courts lower in the hierarchy. Prior to 1966 the House of Lords were too bound by their own decisions to help ensure certainty unless it was seen to be made ‘per incurium’ (by error). This meant the House of Lords could not overrule a previous decision even if it was socially outdated. This was illustrated in London Tramways v London CC where it was held certainty of the law was more important than individual hardship . However, the introduction of the Practice Statement 1966 gave the House of Lords flexibility to amend a law if it is ‘right to do so’. In the appeal documents a material change of circumstances usually has to be shown. The Practice Statement (HL: Judicial Precedent) [1966] 1 W.L.R.1234, per Lord Gardiner, argued for and against a rigid system of binding precedent and highlighted that even though certainty is of importance within the making of Laws, to follow past precedents blindly will lead to injustice. The House of Lords freed itself from a self-imposed restraint by exercising its inherent jurisdiction as a court to change its own practice.

“Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute” (Lord Hope). Discuss with reference to at least three challenges to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is the concept that Parliament has the power to repeal, amend or create any law it wishes and therefore no body in the UK can challenge its legal validity. There are many people who would argue that this is a key principle to the UK Constitution, on the other hand, there are those who strongly believe that this idea is one of the past, and that the idea of the UK Parliament being sovereign is false. One of these people is Lord Hope, who said “Parliamentary sovereignty is no longer, if it ever was, absolute”. During the last 50 years there have been a variety of developments that have proved to be a challenge for the legitimacy of parliamentary sovereignty, and the ones which will be examined in this essay are: the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament; The United Kingdom’s entry into the European Union in 1973; and finally the power of judicial review. Starting with the devolution of powers, these challenges will all be evaluated when discussing whether or not the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty applies to the United Kingdom. Westminster’s sovereignty has been gradually diminishing over time as varying amounts of power have been devolved to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In this essay, the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament will be

Britain is the short history of the country in the world. But Britain was the first country to establish a parliamentary system in the world, and was the first national bicameral appear. As the birthplace of modern political system, preserving seven hundred years of the British House of Lords system seems embarrassed. As the second chamber of the British Parliament,the House of Lords members has resigned by queen rather than elected. For a long time, did not implement election system of the House of Lords has been the focus of debate.There are many news and essays referring the House of Lords reform, in these articles have many points which I agree with. I think House of Lords need to have significant reforms.

Illogical distinctions. The use of distinguishing to avoid past decisions can lead to ‘hair-splitting’ resulting in some areas of the law becoming very complex. From 1898 to 1966 the House of Lords was completely bound by its own past decisions unless the decision had been made per incuriam, that is, in

the United Kingdom unlike most other countries does not have a codified constitution to restrict the powers of the Parliament, the main check on power of the British Parliament is the sovereignty of the future parliaments. The European Union has been growing since its establishment and its growth has been considered a threat to the Parliamentary Sovereignty of the UK, since their joining of the EU in 1973. This essay will showcase the treaties, institutions, cases, and acts that have eroded the sovereignty of the UK Parliament and will conclude that the development of the EU will only further reduce the power of Parliamentary Sovereignty as long as the United Kingdom stays a member of the EU.