How Parliament Works
A Bicameral Parliament
The UK Parliament is bicameral, meaning it has two chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This two-chamber design means legislation is debated and scrutinised in two places before it becomes law. Parliament meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Its three core functions are making laws (the legislative function), scrutinising the work of the government (the accountability function) and representing citizens and debating matters of public concern.
The House of Commons
The House of Commons is the elected chamber. It has 650 Members of Parliament (MPs), each representing a constituency — a local area of the country. MPs are elected by the public using the First Past the Post system. Because the Commons is democratically elected, it is the more powerful of the two chambers. It can pass laws, approve government spending, debate policy and hold ministers to account through parliamentary questions, select committees and debates.
The Commons is chaired by the Speaker, who maintains order in debates, decides who may speak and is politically neutral — resigning from their party upon election to the post. The whips are party officials who manage MPs’ attendance and voting behaviour. Front bench MPs — ministers in government, shadow ministers in opposition — sit nearest the despatch boxes. Back bench MPs sit behind them and can scrutinise and challenge the front bench from within their own party or from opposition.
MPs scrutinise the government through: parliamentary questions (including Prime Minister’s Questions, held weekly when Parliament is sitting); select committees (groups of MPs who investigate specific policy areas and publish reports); and debates (formal discussions in the Chamber on legislation, government policy or matters of public concern). Select committees can call ministers and civil servants to give evidence.
The House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper chamber. Unlike the Commons, it is not elected — its members are mostly appointed. Lords come from three groups: life peers (appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister for their lifetime); bishops (26 senior Church of England bishops, known as Lords Spiritual); and hereditary peers (a small remaining group of 92, whose title passes down through their family following the House of Lords Act 1999). The Lords scrutinise and can amend legislation passed by the Commons. They cannot permanently block Bills. They can delay most Bills by up to a year, and Money Bills for up to one month, and return Bills to the Commons with proposed amendments.
The unelected nature of the Lords is the subject of ongoing debate. Supporters argue that many life peers bring independent expertise (in law, science, medicine, the arts) that improves the quality of scrutiny. Critics argue that an unelected chamber exercising legislative power is incompatible with democratic principles. Both viewpoints reflect genuine arguments in the continuing debate over Lords reform.
Black Rod is an official of the House of Lords. The most visible ceremonial role of Black Rod is during the State Opening of Parliament, when they walk to the House of Commons to summon MPs to hear the King’s Speech. By tradition, the door of the Commons is shut in Black Rod’s face — symbolising the Commons’ independence from the Crown — before being opened after three knocks.
The State Opening of Parliament is a ceremony in which the monarch delivers the King’s Speech (or Queen’s Speech), which sets out the government’s legislative programme for the coming year. The speech is written by the government, not the monarch, reflecting the convention that the monarch acts on the advice of ministers. The Speaker chairs the House of Commons, selected by MPs and expected to be politically impartial, calling MPs to speak and maintaining order.
The House of Commons is elected (650 MPs, one per constituency). The House of Lords is mostly appointed (life peers, bishops, some hereditary peers). The Commons is the more powerful chamber: it can pass any legislation; the Lords can delay Bills and propose amendments but cannot permanently block them. Money Bills relating to taxation and spending can be delayed by the Lords for up to one month.
One viewpoint is that the Lords should be reformed to include an elected element. Supporters of this view argue that democratic legitimacy requires elected representatives at every level of the legislature; that appointed peers may not reflect the diversity of the population; and that the current system allows Prime Ministers too much patronage power in deciding who becomes a lord.
A contrasting viewpoint is that the appointed nature of the Lords is a feature rather than a flaw. Supporters argue that life peers with expertise in specific fields (such as medical science, law or education) improve the quality of legislative scrutiny. They also argue that a fully elected second chamber could rival the Commons and create constitutional deadlock, whereas the current Lords acts as a revising chamber rather than a competing power. This debate is ongoing and reflects genuine disagreement about democratic values.
The Role of the Opposition
The largest party not in government forms the opposition. Its leader becomes Leader of the Opposition and leads a ‘shadow cabinet’ — shadow ministers who scrutinise each government department. At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), the Leader of the Opposition questions the Prime Minister directly, putting the government’s record under public scrutiny. The formal existence of an organised opposition is a key feature of UK parliamentary democracy — it ensures the government must defend its decisions in public.