Parliament as Legislature

Parliament is the UK's legislature: the institution that makes, changes and repeals law. In constitutional terms Parliament is made up of three elements:

The key vocabulary is precise. A bill is a proposal for a new law or a change to an existing law. An Act of Parliament is a bill that has passed the required stages and received Royal Assent. Legislation means law made by Parliament, especially Acts and delegated legislation.

Parliament has several roles, but this lesson focuses on four that matter directly to the Commons-Lords law-making relationship:

Do not confuse Parliament with government. Government proposes policy and usually introduces most major bills. Parliament debates, amends, approves or rejects legislation. A government with a majority in the Commons often has a strong grip on the process, but that is political control, not the same thing as legal sovereignty.

Active reading: Why is it inaccurate to say that "the government makes law" without mentioning Parliament?

Commons: Elected Chamber

The House of Commons is the publicly elected chamber. The UK public elects 650 MPs, each representing a constituency. The party with the largest number of MPs normally forms the government, because a government needs to command confidence in the Commons to pass budgets and sustain its programme.

Current evidence helps show why the Commons is usually the decisive chamber. The House of Commons Library records that Labour won a majority at the 4 July 2024 general election, with 411 seats. On 22 June 2026, UK Parliament's live "State of the parties" page recorded Labour as a majority government with a working majority of 165 in a 650-seat Commons.

The Commons matters more than the Lords for three main reasons:

In legislative debate, MPs do more than recite party lines. They can explain constituency concerns, probe a minister's case, support or oppose amendments, and create a public record of objections. However, party discipline matters. Government bills are often whipped, meaning governing-party MPs are expected to vote with ministers, especially on central manifesto and budget commitments.

This is why the Commons is both democratic and majoritarian. It is democratic because MPs are elected. It is majoritarian because a government majority can usually pass legislation unless its own MPs rebel or parliamentary time runs out.

Active reading: Give one reason the Commons has stronger democratic legitimacy than the Lords, and one reason that legitimacy does not guarantee detailed scrutiny.

Lords: Revising Chamber

The House of Lords is the second chamber of Parliament. It works with the Commons to make laws, check and challenge government, and provide independent expertise. Unlike MPs, Members of the Lords are not elected to represent constituencies. They are usually called peers or Members of the Lords, not MPs.

The Lords' composition gives it a different kind of authority from the Commons:

The Lords spends much of its chamber time on legislation. UK Parliament describes about 60 percent of Lords Chamber time as legislation and about 40 percent as scrutiny, questioning government and debating issues or policy. In law-making, its strongest role is revision: identifying technical problems, rights concerns, administrative gaps or unintended effects in bills.

There is also an important reform anchor. The House of Lords Act 1999 removed most hereditary peers but allowed 92 to remain. The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 removed the remaining hereditary peers from membership, with 77 removed when the 2024-26 session ended on 29 April 2026. That is useful evidence both for composition and for sovereignty: Parliament can change the structure of Parliament by statute.

The Lords is therefore influential but subordinate. It can delay, revise and ask the Commons to think again; it cannot usually defeat the elected House's settled will.

Active reading: Why might an unelected chamber be useful in revising legislation, even if it should not normally have the final word?

Debate and Record

Parliamentary debate is formal political argument. It is not a casual discussion. In the Commons, a debate normally happens on a motion, which is a proposal the House can agree or disagree with. For a bill, the motion might be that the bill should be read a second time, which tests whether MPs accept its general principles.

Debate performs four functions:

The Commons Speaker is central to order. MPs may speak only if called by the Speaker or a deputy, and the Speaker is politically impartial when chairing debate. The government controls most Commons sitting time, so many debates focus on government priorities. But opposition days, backbench debates, Westminster Hall debates and petition debates create other routes for issues to reach Parliament.

In the Lords, debate is often less dominated by a single governing majority. Members can test the policy detail and legal drafting of bills, especially at committee and report stages. Because the chamber contains many former ministers, lawyers, public servants, scientists, diplomats and campaigners, debate can become a form of expert pressure.

Hansard is the official report of parliamentary debates. It matters because arguments, promises, objections and ministerial explanations become part of the public record, making debate visible for voters, journalists, campaigners and later parliamentary scrutiny.

Parliamentary privilege helps make debate possible. It gives members of both Houses legal immunities, including freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings and each House's right to regulate its own affairs. The point is not to place politicians above criticism; it is to let Parliament debate freely without outside interference.

Active reading: What is the difference between debate as "public discussion" and debate as a step towards a parliamentary decision?

Legislative Process

Most major bills are government bills, but bills can also come from backbench MPs, peers, private bodies or hybrid procedures. For this lesson, the key point is the ordinary public bill process: both Houses must agree the same text before a bill can become an Act.

Basic process map:

Policy idea or draft bill
-> First reading: formal introduction, no main debate
-> Second reading: debate and vote on the bill's principles
-> Committee stage: line-by-line examination and possible amendments
-> Report stage: whole House can consider further amendments
-> Third reading: final debate and approval in that House
-> Other House repeats its stages
-> Consideration of amendments: each House responds to the other's changes
-> Royal Assent: the King formally agrees; the bill becomes an Act

The stages matter because they ask different political questions:

The Commons and Lords have similar stages, but their political weight differs. In the Commons, a government majority can often drive the bill through. In the Lords, amendments may be easier to secure because the government does not necessarily control the chamber. That is why the Lords can be a powerful revising chamber even though it lacks final democratic authority.

When the two Houses disagree over amendments, the bill can move back and forth in ping pong. Each House considers whether to accept, reject or replace the other's changes. The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a recent example: in March 2026, the Lords considered Commons reasons for disagreeing with Lords amendments; the Lords accepted those reasons without a division, and the bill later appeared on the Parliamentary Bills site as the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026.

The Lords' power is limited by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. Money Bills must start in the Commons and can receive Royal Assent no more than a month after being introduced in the Lords even if the Lords has not passed them. Most other Commons Bills can be delayed by the Lords for about a year, but the Commons can ultimately pass them without Lords consent if the legal conditions are met. The Salisbury Convention also means the Lords normally does not vote down government bills promised in the governing party's manifesto.

Active reading: At which stage would you expect the most detailed amendment work, and why?

Sovereignty and Judgement

Parliamentary sovereignty is the principle that Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the UK. It can create or end any law. Generally, courts cannot overrule Acts of Parliament, and one Parliament cannot bind a future Parliament so completely that a later Parliament cannot change the law.

This is easiest to see through legislation. If Parliament passes an Act after the Commons, Lords and Royal Assent stages, that Act is the highest form of domestic law. The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 is a clear example: Parliament used ordinary legislation to alter the membership basis of one of its own Houses.

However, AQA answers need a sharper distinction than "Parliament is powerful". There are at least three layers:

Developments such as devolution, the Human Rights Act 1998, EU membership and exit, and the UK Supreme Court affect how sovereignty works in practice. But they do not remove the legal principle, because Parliament could, in theory, repeal or change the statutes that created those arrangements. That is why sovereignty is a legal doctrine with political limits, not a claim that every parliamentary choice is easy or consequence-free.

For evaluative answers, avoid two weak extremes:

A strong judgement for this lesson is: Parliament's law-making power is legally sovereign, but the process is not a simple rubber stamp. The Commons supplies elected authority and government control; the Lords supplies revision and delay; debate creates public justification; and Royal Assent completes the statute. The tension between democratic primacy and expert revision is the core debate students should carry into exam answers.

Active reading: Which matters more in practice for passing ordinary government bills: parliamentary sovereignty, Commons majority control, or Lords revision? Give a one-sentence judgement.