The UK Parliament

UK Parliament Language

The Parliament has a variety of roles in helping the UK to run efficiently as a country. The primary job of parliament is to make laws, debate topical issues and look at how our taxes are spent to help run the country.

Parliament consist of two parts:

The House of Lords – these are made up of people with inherited family titles and who have been given titles due to their outstanding work in one field or another. This consists of 675 members. The main job of the House of Lords is to double check new laws to make sure they are fair and will work.

The House of Commons – these have 659 members who have been elected by local residents in order to represent an area of the country in parliament; called MP’s. Each MP represents one of 659 constituencies (areas) in the UK and is a member of a political party. This is the most important place for discussing policies and making laws.

Parliamentary language

Here are examples of parliamentary language:

Act – a law made by Parliament

Cabinet – the group of senior ministers in a Government –the cabinet meets regularly to make important decisions

Constituency – the electorate or area, or the people n it represented by an MP

Deregulation order – an order to alter or cancel a provision in primary legislation that is considered to impose a burden on business or others.

Enfranchise – to give a person the right to vote

Hansard – a full report of what was said in parliament (including written questions and their answers) is published in the official report.

Judicial power – the power to interpret or apply the law in particular cases

Money bill – a bill setting a tax or proposing the spending of money for a particular purpose

Non-Partisan – not aligned to a political party; not biased or one sided; neutral

Parliamentary counsel – responsible for drafting government bills and amendments to bills, and advising government departments on all aspects of parliamentary procedure

Points of order – a method where members bring supposed breaches of the House's rules of order to the Speaker's attention. Members may seek to raise them at any time, but the Speaker has discretion as to when to hear them and will not normally do so during Question Time.

Select committee – a group of members from either House or both Houses, appointed to inquire into and report on a certain subject. A select committee ceases to exist when it has made its final report to the House or Houses

Unconstitutional – contrary to or inconsistent with the Constitution or the recognized principles of the constitutional law of a country

Writs – formal orders issued by the Governor, requiring that an election be held.

Unparliamentary language

Unparliamentary language breaks the rules of politeness in the House of Commons Chamber. Part of the speaker’s role is to make sure that MP's don’t use insulting or rude language, don’t accuse eachother of lying, being drunk or misrepresent each other’s words and suggest that another MP has false motives. If an MP uses Unparliamentary language during debates, the speaker will ask the concerned member to withdraw what has been said. An MP may be asked to leave the house and is suspended for five sitting days if they don’t withdraw a comment. The Speaker has objected words such as blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, rat, swine, stoolpigeon and traitor. Sometimes MP's will use a large amount of resourcefulness to get around the rules – e.g. Winston Churchill used the phrase ‘terminological inexactitude’ to mean ‘lie’.

Criticism and accusations are allowed (often under the cover of parliamentary privilege) but certain types of language are considered too abusive.