hi my name's Ollie and in this politics explained video I'm going to go through everything you need to know about the legislative process and the comparative powers of the House of Commons and House of Lords in a level politics so that's not just all the knowledge you need to know with some really key specific examples but also key points of analysis that you could use in your essays as well as um some really likely questions that you could get asked in the exam so you can be fully prepared for your exam the PDF you should be seeing up there you can access in the first link in the description um to the politics blank website where you can also find a space place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interested in as well as a lot of other resources including essay plans and these kind of everything you need to know guys to help you in your politics a level so this video is going to start by looking at the kind of potential essay questions and key debates you can get asked about I'm then going to go into the legislative process from there I'm going to look at the comparative powers of the house and Commons and House of Lords finishing off with a kind of debate between the House of Commons and the House of Lords so yeah um let me know any questions you've got in the comments um comment section below without further Ado let's get into it so starting off um with the parts of the specification this lesson covers so this is um part of the parliament topic um and it's 2.2 and 2.3 so first one is the comparative powers of the House of Commons and Lords and the second one is the legislative process so this is the reason why I've kind of put them in together in one video is they really kind of have a lot of shared content and work well together and in terms of the key debates you get asked about in the exam on these topics you can get asked about whether Parliament carries out its legislative function effectively you could be asked about the power balance between the House of Commons and the House of Lords and you could also get a question just on the House of Lords in which you need to use your knowledge from the Constitution topic and other parts of the parliament topic as well if you make detailed essay plans on the questions involved below and kind of use them to kind of practice and answer other questions as well you should be well prepared for the exam and these will also soon be available to purchase on the politics explained website so yeah in terms of key kind of questions you can ask you've got to evaluate the view the parliament performance legislative role effectively evaluate the view that the House of Lords is an effective check on the power of the household Commons and evaluate the view that the House of Lords is in need of major reform but now going on to um the content so starting off with the legislative process and start off with the different types of bills um so the first key way to kind of divide up bills is public versus private bills so public bills are the vast majority of bills um and their bills that affect them the entire population um including both government bills and private members bills and just to clarify um bills are effectively laws before they get voted on right before they become laws um so they're kind of proposed laws and the SEC so the majority of bills are public bills we've also got private bills which only um affect only organizations such as local authorities and companies or only affect kind of particular individuals and give them powers that are Beyond or in conflict with the general law so private bills only change the law as it applies to specific individuals or organizations rather than the population as a whole and often come as a result of organizations or individuals lobbying the government um directly so for example the University of Manchester act 2004 facilitates the merger of two existing manchester-based universities so that's kind of one way to divide up builds potentially the more important way is to divide it between government and private members more so all of these government and private members bills are public bills so as the government controls the majority of the Parliamentary timetable most bills are government bills so these are piloted through the legislative process by ministers and seek to fulfill Manifesto commitments for the government's more General agenda there are also private members bills though which introduced by back bench MPS and offer a way of legislating on important issues without dividing parties there have been notable pieces of legislation that the Ghana's private members bills including the abortion Act of 1967 which legalized abortion and the assault and emergency workers Act of 2018 which was introduced by labor MP Chris Brown private members bills have little chance of getting passed unless they are backed by the government though whilst they are very susceptible to filibustering as there's little time in the Parliamentary calendar for them there are three different ways for private members bills to be introduced the first and kind of most likely having success is through a ballot so MPS who want to promote propose a private member's Bill enter a ballot at the start of every parliamentary session 20 MPS are chosen at random and they are then able to propose a bill on one of the 13 Fridays in the Parliamentary session these are the most likely to succeed as more time is allocated for them in the Parliamentary calendar the second way is 10 minute rule bills which allow a backbench MP to make the case for a new bill in a speech lasting up to 10 minutes there can be an opposing speech before the House of Commons decides on whether to introduce the bill if it is successful um then the bill is given the first reading these bills are unlikely to progress further though as they aren't given priority in the Parliamentary calendar which is dominated by the government and they're often just used to criticize current legislation and the final one is presentation when MP is simply introduce a private member's bill but don't speak to support it these very rarely succeed um so the first two are the main ways that they succeed particularly through the ballot it's now looking at how a bill becomes a law and the different stages so before a bill enters the house of common stages they go through a consultation stage um this starts with a consultation a green paper which then maybe turned into a firm proposal or white paper on which committees comment Before the bill is eventually drafted so in what order the bills go through the commons Lords and crowns so the crown is is the monarch if a bill starts in the Commons it goes through the commons first then the Lords then packed the commons to approve the Lord's amendments and then to Royal Ascent providing the amendments are accepted if it's the same if a bill starts in the Lord's um but the Lords and Commons are switched so um go through the laws first then the commons for some remembrance and then back to the Lords and if if those amendments are accepted then it's passed and goes to the monarch the vast majority go through the house requirements first so what stages does a bill go through in the Commons before it goes to law so the first thing it has is a first reading where the bill is formally introduced to the House of Commons by a minister a date is set for the second reading and the bill is printed up ready for the second reading the second reading is when a minister outlines explains and justifies the proposal the proposal and deals with general questions um the princes Pearls of the bill are disgusted uh discussed sorry and contested by back benches and Shadow ministers if a bill is contested at this stage there is a vote that the government always always wins then it goes to the committee so this is the the Thursday to the committee stage when it's sent to a public bill committee a separate one of which is formed for each bill so the bill is scrutinized in detail and amended and public bill committees range in size from 16 to 50 MPS and reflect the party competition of the house so we'll have a government majority in them for especially important bills especially Finance bills this scrutiny is done by the whole House of Commons um for example the recent illegal migration board then it goes to a report stage when MPS can propose and vote on Amendment on the floor of the house um the Amendments that are suggested at the committee stage are also voted on and then finally our third reading um so there's no major amendment to this stage the bill as a whole is looked down and debated before kind of being voted on by the House of Commons and Pastor rejected so once that's passed it goes to the House of Lords where effectively has a very similar process so it has a first reading um it has a second reading which are effectively the same then it has a committee stage so in the Lords this is normally done um in the chamber as a committee of the whole house so the Builder is scrutinized in detail and amended then you have a report stage that the same as the House of Commons right where peers can propose and vote on amendments on the floor of the house and a third reading so if the bill is passed it moves towards Royal ascent and if it is rejected or significantly amended then it returns to the commons um for consideration going through all of the common stages again before returning to the laws what I'm going to look at now is the interaction between the commons and the Lords during the legislative process so what is the key role of the House of Lords in the legislative process the House of Lords recognizes its lack of democratic legitimacy and therefore doesn't seek to exert all of the powers it possibly could do in the legislative process instead it sees its role as offering technical amendments to improve and fix bills as well as taking a stand against the bill when it feels it is Justified for example in terms of protecting rights or halting a bill that has garnered a huge public backlash and has limited public support if the House of Commons offers amendments which are then rejected by the House of Commons the house of laws does then often accept its that lack of democratic legitimacy and backs down so for example the EU withdrawal Act of 2020 was sent back to the House of Commons with five amendments including one guaranteeing the continuance of the Erasmus scheme however the House of Commons rejected all of these amendments and the laws back down recognizing the lack of lack of democratic legitimacy um or sorry recognizing the greater Democratic legitimacy of the House of Commons and the Democratic legitimacy of brexit so um if the House of Commons um or sorry if the house of law doesn't accept the commons amendments um what you can have is parliamentary ping pong so this is when if either housemates amendments to appeal the other house must consider them and agree to them before a bill is passed if they fail to agree to them and make alternative proposals then they must go back to the other house to be voted on again bills can go back and forth between the House of Lords and House of Commons before both houses reach GM agreement um on the working of the bill and that's known as parliamentary ping pong a good recent example of this is the 2021 trade act which established a trade remedies Authority the House of Lords sought to introduce an amendment supported by some in the Commons to prevent the UK governments from agreeing to trade deals with other countries that had committed genocide which the courts would decide whether genocide had been committed the bill was introduced in the Commons in March 2020 and the Lords in July 2020. after this it went back and forth between the two houses six times before receiving Royal Ascent on the 29th of April 2021 the House of Lords eventually backed down on this amendment so that shows how it can go back and forth consistently um before it's eventually passed it's now looking at some key things to limit the house rewards firstly looking at the Salisbury convention so the Salsbury convention means that the house of laws shouldn't block any bill that fulfills a pledge in the government's election Manifesto by voting against it in the second or third reading the laws can offer technical amendments but can't introduce wrecking amendments which change the government's Manifesto intention as proposed in the bill the laws must also give the commons reasonable time to consider amendments and pass the bill so there is disagreement where the within the Lords as to whether the convention should still apply during coalitions of minority governments and it's largely been left up to individual peers to the side though it's caused fewer problems as May uh have been expected as the Lord's rarely blocked government proposals anyway um so that's a key limitation on the legislative power of the Lords um because it plays very little role um I can't kind of can't block legislation that was included in the government's Manifesto um a key piece of legislation or two key pieces of legislation the limit the House of Lords are the parliament acts of 1911 and 1949. so the 1911 Parliament Act was passed following a crisis over the budget it had been a convention that the laws didn't interfere with matters of Taxation since the 17th century however they did in 1909 when the liberal Government tried to introduce new taxes on land and wealth causing a constitutional crisis the ACT gave the House of Lords no right to delay Financial bills and its previous power to veto non-financial bills was replaced by delaying power lasting two years so before this it had he had a complete veto and similar parts to the House of Commons now um in the parliament Act of 1911 that was really reduced they can't um kind of offer kind of wrecking amendments to financial bills and in relation to other bills they only have a delaying power of two years this delaying power was then reduced to one year in the 1949 parliaments act um after the Lords opposed the Iron and Steel nationalization Bill including at least labor Manifesto so those two um key things the Salisbury convention and the parliaments act are really key things to remember um and really key ways in which the Lords is limited um next going to look at secondary legislation so bills which turn into acts of parliament are known as primary legislation so that's kind of most the legislation we looked at so far um these acts Empower ministers to make further changes or regulations within the scope of the law after it has become law um So within laws there's also kind of variation um and kind of further powers that enable that kind of empower the government to make those kind of small changes so these regulations are known as a secondary or delegated legislation and can be changed by ministers using statutory instruments around 3500 of which are introduce a year from all areas of government legislation for example um statutory instruments are used to ban new substances by adding them to a list under the misuse of drugs act 1971 rather than passing a whole new kind of piece of primary legislation completely in 2016 the government abolished maintenance grants for University students using secondary legislation showing that kind of really significant changes in people's lives can be made by um statutory instruments so statutory instruments are scrutinized by the select committee on statutory instruments which considers whether they should be drawn to special attention of um Parliament the majority of statutory instruments are made law by ministers and automatically become laws and less objected to by Parliament which is very rare um so very little parliamentary scrutiny apartment plays very little role in secondary legislation it's mostly controlled by the government so um final thing we're going to look at before looking at the comparative power of the two houses is how the House of Commons legislative scrutiny has decreased in recent years so MPS spend a lot less time in the House of Commons debating legislation um than they used to MP spent just 24 of their time in the chamber between 2006 and 2021 compared to 44 of peers so Parliament can therefore be seen as rely on the House of Lords of scrutiny just 27 of bills in the last five parliamentary sessions were subject to an oral evidence session at the committee stage in which the committee calls in expert witnesses to give their views on their legislation so that can be seen as kind of decreased kind of Effectiveness and detailed scrutiny of um government bills and only around 10 of government bills passed by parliament receive pre-legis scrutiny um when they're green or white papers so especially in recent years many of those are rushed through Parliament and received little scrutiny from the House of Commons as the brexit process and covid-19 set precedent for legislating quickly and avoiding scrutiny the government has given the recently introduced illegal migration bill just two days in the committee of the whole house for example and this Compares for example to the 2016 Immigration Act which had 15 committee sessions and received 55 written pieces of evidence so a lot more um scrutiny of legislation okay so that was the legislative process 2.3 of the parliament topic what I'm going to look at now is the comparative powers of the House of Commons and House of Lords which is 2.2 and this is the part of this video that's more likely in my opinion to for there to be asked a question so starting off by looking at the exclusive powers of the House of Commons the first of these is bringing dog Bringing Down the government so one key power held exclusively by the House of Commons is that they can hold a vote of no confidence and therefore bring down a government if the government loses as they're forced to resign the last time this happened was in 1979 when nationalist parties that were upholding a minority labor government in a confidence and Supply agreement withdrew their support which brought down the Callahan government and triggered the 1979 general election this kind of links into the next exclusive power of the House of Commons and that's forming a confidence and Supply agreement so the House of Commons has the exclusive power to uphold a minority government um through a confidence and Supply agreement this is when one of the conservative or labor parties doesn't have a majority um and doesn't get a majority through a formal Coalition such as the 2010 Coalition was um instead it gets it through a limited agreement with another party or parties that agree to keep them in government the supporting smaller parties promise to support the government in a vote of no confidence that's the confidence part of confidence and supply and to vote through the government's budget the supply part in return they receive some concessions so in 2017 for example the conservative minority government used a competence Supply agreement with the dup Democratic unionist party in Northern Ireland in which the dup agreed to support the conservatives in votes of no confidence and over budget in return for one billion pounds of money pledged underwater Island so that's the kind of concessions that could be offered I think in 19 um I don't know when the the um the government was brought in maybe 1976 77 and when there was that um confidence Supply agreement between Callahan and the minority parties between labor in those nationalist parties I think one of the key um concessions they had was having Devolution referendums which were rejected which is actually a key reason why that confidence and Supply agreement broke down in 1979. so next thing is forcing through legislation so if the House of Commons refuses to change its position and pass the Bill supported by the House of Commons the House of Commons can has a last resort invoke the parliament Act of 1949 after a year to force a bill through this was used three times by the black government but hasn't been used since and has only been used seven times in total so under black it was used to change the voting system um for EU Parliament elections with the European um parliamentary elections Act of 1999 it was used to equalize the age of consent um to 16 for homosexuals and heterosexuals um with the sexual offenses Act of 2000 and it was used to ban hunting with dogs with the hunting Act of 2004. and then finally a key kind of exclusive power of the House of Commons is to pass Financial financial and manifesting legislation which is kind of we looked at a little bit already with the Salisbury convention and the politics acts so the Salisbury convention means that the house of laws shouldn't block any bill that fulfills a pledge in the government's election Manifesto by voting against it in the second or third reading the Lords can offer technical amendments but can't introduce wrecking amendments as we went through um and the parliament's acts of 1911 and 1949 prevent the House of Lords from delaying Financial bills so that was the kind of um exclusive powers of the commons I want to look at now is the main powers of the House of Lords so the first one of these is forcing um a general election after five years if the government seeks to stay on Beyond five years without a general election then the house of laws has the legal power to force a general election this hasn't happened yet but it can be seen as quite an important Democratic power secondly scrutinizing and revising legislation especially in recent years when the government has increasingly rushed legislation through the House of Commons the House of Lords has played a crucial role in scrutinizing and revising legislation as the government has less control over the Parliamentary timetable in the House of Lords the House of Lords frequently offers technical amendments to improve and fix bills and is sometimes called an amending chamber the government and House of Commons accept most of these amendments and then finally delaying non-financial legislation so though the house of laws often backs down if it's amendments are rejected by the House of Commons sometimes um it doesn't um and take the stand against the bill when it feels it is Justified this is often to protect human rights or in relation to a bill that has garnered a significant public backlash or has limited public support the delaying power can be very significant in influencing legislation especially in emergencies when the government want to pass laws quickly so for example in 2001 10 defeats in the House of Lords led the government to remove incitement to religious hatred as an offense from its anti-terrorism legislation the House of Lords is because the House of Lords didn't back down and argued that it would have threatened human rights now um final thing we look at we're going to look at before looking at the debate between the relative power of the two houses is the growing power and assertiveness of the House of Lords starting off with how the House of Lords has become more representative so following new Labor's reforms the House of Lords is no longer dominated by hereditary peers instead it is dominated by life peers who are there primarily as a result of the expertise and experience he's also becoming increasingly socially representative as efforts have been made to appoint more women and ethnic minority peers following new labor new Labor's reforms the House of Lords also no longer has an inbuilt conservative majority with the cross benches ensuring that no single party can get a majority this leads to Greater scrutiny than in the House of Commons currently there are 260 conservative members 184 cross Ventures and 173 labor party members and clearly showing that no party as close to a majority and how it's kind of more representative and independent secondly the House of Lords has become more professional so since new laborers reforms the House of Lords has become a lot more professional so many life peers are ex-professional politicians who are able to provide leadership in the House of Lords and experience in parliamentary scrutiny so Lord Andrea Adonis for example is a layup here who served as Secretary of State for transport under Gordon Brown many life peers are Specialists from different fields who can provide expertise on specific areas so baroness Brown of Cambridge um Julie Elizabeth King for example is an engineer and a cross-ventress he is the current chair of the House of Lords select committee on Science and Technology I'm kind of showing how her expertise outside of the House of Commons um that specialism allows her to provide effective scrutiny in relation to the um Science and Technology and then finally after the passage of the Human Rights Act in 1998 civil liberties has become a more significant part of UK Politics as the Lord has many lawyers in human rights experts um it can be seen itself as it is kind of often seen itself as the guardian of civil liberties shown in their 2008 opposition um to Labor's anti-terrorism legislation so um finally the house of Lord has become more independent of the executive and effective at scrutiny um so especially since new Labor's reforms um the house laws become more independent um and assertive in scrutinizing the work of government as peers aren't elected they don't need the party machine or party funding to help them remain in posts of another election therefore there's less pressure on them to vote along party lines and whips have little pardoning bargaining power this leads to governments being defeated a great deal more in the House of Lords than they are in the House of Commons especially when the government has a massive majority in which case the laws becomes the effective opposition Tony Blair for example Was Defeated just four times in the House of Commons all of it were in his last term but was defeated 353 times in the house of laws since the 2019 election Boris Johnson Was Defeated four times in the House of Commons but 243 times in the House of Lords which was kind of an unprecedentedly large number I'm given the short amount of time he was in power the House of Lords also has more time energy and expertise to devote to scrutinizing government policy and legislation line by line so for example the 2020 agricultural agriculture act received 32 hours of scrutiny in the House of Commons but 96 hours of scrutiny in the House of Lords so finally just give an example of House of of how the House of Lords kind of exerts these kind of main powers has become kind of is quite independent um is the 2018 EU withdrawal Bill introduced by Theresa May which is a good example of how the House of Lords can be effective in challenging legislation when the government is weak and some members of the House of Lords um had some members of the House of Commons sorry support the amendments in June 2018 the May government suffered 15 defeats in the laws in connection to the EU withdrawal bill um with one Amendment seeking to prevent Britain leaving the Customs Union and another insuring Parliament would have a meaningful vote on any withdrawal agreement reached with the EU so six were defeated in their Commons one was accepted by the government um that was making sure that under law the UK would be able to copy new EU laws passed off the UK's exit and to participate in EU agencies if it chooses and the other eights or some form of compromise conceding that a meaningful vote would have to be held and there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland so that shows um the kind of balance how to some extent they're able to kind of challenge legislation and change their legislation but in other ways they are because the commons rejects their remembrance okay so the final thing I'm going to look at is the debate over the relative power of the two houses and I'll split this up into three different sections which you could use as paragraphs in your essay so the first of these is power over legislation and the arguments that the House of Commons um is more powerful um looks at how the parliament act can be used to force a bill through um if the house of laws kind of seeks to reject it um the House of Lords is also Limited in the legislation it can vote down and play a role in whilst the House of Commons isn't so the Salisbury convention um prevents the House of Lords blocking any bill and the government's Manifesto um and the Parliament Sac prevent the um um hospitals from delaying Financial bills and finally even when the House of Lords votes against legislation or attempts to significantly amend it it often backs down when the House of Commons disagrees or votes against these amendments recognizing its lack of democratic legitimacy on the other hand arguments that the House of Lords is more powerful is that though the House of Lords often backs down if amendments are rejected by the House of Commons um sometimes it doesn't and it takes a stand against a bill when it feels it is Justified um often to protect human rights or in relation to a bill that's done a significant public backlash or its limited public support secondly the delaying power can be very significant in influencing legislation especially in emergencies when governments want to pass laws quickly and finally when the government has a large majority in the House of Commons it's very unlikely to be defeated um whereas by contrast especially since new Labor's reforms um the House of Lords has become more independent of the executive and more assertive in scrutinizing the work of the government this leads to governments being defeated a great deal more in the House of Commons than they are in the house in the house of Lord sorry than they are in the House of Commons especially when the government has a massive majority in which case the laws becomes the effect of opposition so when the government has a massive majority it can be argued the House of Lords is more effective and has more power over legislation because the house will come in so infrequently rejects um the government's rejects government bills the next thing to look at is is scrutiny um so arguments the House of Lords is more powerful in terms of scrutiny is that especially in recent years when the government has increasingly rushed legislation through the House of Commons the House of Lords has played a crucial role in scrutinizing and revising legislation as the government has less control over the Parliamentary timetable in the House of Lords the House of Lords frequently offers technical amendments to improve and fix bills and is sometimes killed an amending chamber um since new neighbors reforms the house of laws has also become a lot more professional and has significant expertise which allows highly effective scrutiny of government legislation the House of Lords also has more time energy and expertise to devote I'm just scrutinizing government policy and legislation line by line the House of Commons by contrast spends little time scrutinizing government legislation with the fact that MPS are whips and public build committees reflecting the balance of the house um and therefore the fact like if they reflect the balance the house they have a government majority that can be seen as limiting the effectiveness of House of common scrutiny of legislation on the other hand arguments of the House of Commons is more powerful that the House of Commons can be seen as providing more effective non-legisive scrutiny in a number of ways including select committees Minister's questions and debates look at um the um video on the politics explained YouTube channel on parliamentary scrutiny um and the interaction between um the government and Parliament for that um for more detail on that secondly the Democratic legitimacy of the House of Commons um is led the housing Commons legislative scrutiny leads to it being more effective whilst it also has the executive power to vote down Financial legislation and legislation included in the government's Manifesto um and finally it can be argued the public bill committees in the House of Commons do provide effect discretion they can call Expert Witnesses and they devote often devote significant time um to scrutinizing legislation and then finally looking at the key non-legisive powers of both Chambers so arguments of the House of Commons is more powerful is how they can hold a vote of no confidence and bring down a government if the government um loses support the House of Commons also has um the exclusive power to uphold a minority government in a confidence and Supply agreement on the other hand argument that the House of Lords is more powerful is that the government um if the government sees to stay on Beyond five years without a general election and the house of laws has the legal power to force a general election so yeah that's everything in terms of the content I'm going to quickly now go back to some essay questions and just have a quick talk about how you could potentially um instruct your answers to them so evaluate the view the parliament performs its legislative role effectively this one is quite difficult you probably need to combine it with um other parts of the parliament topic potentially what you could do um is look at private members bills as one paragraph how effective they are at being passed um so how effective Parliament is at passing legislation without um without the government then you could look at um scrutiny um of legislation um in the House of Commons um in terms of how effective it is at that and then you could potentially um and in that you could bring a stuffing about kind of how um how well like roughed how the government has recently rushed through um legislation and thirdly you could potentially look at the role of the House of Lords and how effective it is kind of helping to pass legislation that's not to say that's the only way you can answer that lots of different ways but as I said that's probably quite an unlikely question as well um to be asked next one evaluate the view that the House of Lords is an effective check on the power of the House of uh sorry the house laws in effect check on that part of the House of Commons um for that one I'd probably use those three different um headings we just we just went through right so um scrutiny at the government power over legislation and other kind of key non-legisive powers and then evaluate the view of the House of Lords is in need of major reform for that one You definitely need to compare it with other parts of the parliament topic and the Constitution topic as well um just some ideas of things you could include from this um from this video um in that you could potentially include arguments that they should have more Powers um or you like because the government could effectively fall through a lot of legislation then you combine that with stuff from other um videos potentially you could have a paragraph one that they should be elected and a paragraph on reform near points process so yeah let me know in the comment section below if you've got any questions or comments or anything I can help with um as I said at the start of the video um you can find the PDF um you can see up there on the first link in the first link in the description to the politics explain website there's also a lot of um essay plans and other resources to help you in your politics um in your politics a level um as well as a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interested in So yeah thank you very much