House of Commons

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The view from the lobby, just about. Speaker's chair looks all the way through the lobby and the House of Lords to the monarch on the throne.

For information about the physical chamber of the House of Commons, please see Commons Chamber.

The House of Commons is the lower, elected chamber of the national legislature of the United Kingdom. Its delegates are known as Members of Parliament (MPs). There are currently 650 of them, and they are the main focus of the Lolitics fandom.

History[edit | edit source]

A biography should begin with a birth. But parliament's evolution in the maelstrom of royal demands, baronial complaints and feudal grievances had no single moment of conception, no instant when the infant came mewling and puking into the world~ Chris Bryant[1]

No one can agree when the House of Commons really came into being since no one can really agree on what the Commons was and what should count as the "Commons". Meetings of non-royals for the purpose of political discussion can be dated back centuries. The first Speaker of the House of Commons was Sir Thomas Hunderford in 1376 although there had been conveners and "spokesmen" beforehand. The first Clerk of the House of Commons was Robert de Melton, appointed "Under-Clerk of the Parliaments, to wait upon the Commons" in 1363. So it's safe to say that the House of Commons is really, really old.

Members of Parliament[edit | edit source]

These are the people that sit in the House of Commons.

Numbers[edit | edit source]

By the early 15th century, there were about 250 Members and by 1673 this number had risen to 513. The Act of Union of 1707 brought Scotland into the Commons, increasing the number of Members to 558. The Union with Ireland in 1801 increased this number to 658. The largest number of Members was in 1918 when there were 707 Members.[2]. There are 650 MPs in the current parliament (following the 2015 general election) and the number of MPs is now decided by the Electoral Commission who try and keep the number of electors per constituency roughly similar.

The People[edit | edit source]

As far as we are aware, everyone elected to the House of Commons is actually a person. Over the years, the representation of people who aren't white, rich, straight men has increased.

Proceedings[edit | edit source]

Chairing proceedings[edit | edit source]

All debates are chaired by the Speaker, currently John Bercow, or one of the deputy speakers. The Speaker is also an MP and elected to their position by other MPs, but is required to be impartial. He or she has the power to make rowdy members STFU by use of the magical word "ORDER!"

Due to not yet having discovered electricity, members must stand to 'catch the Speaker's eye' when they wish to speak, so the Speaker knows who to call. They can only do this in between speeches, which gives the effect of them bouncing up and down. They must also walk through doors in order to vote and be counted. When it is time to vote, the division bell rings and the Speaker shouts "Clear the lobbies!" They all shuffle through, and when everyone has returned to the chamber, he shouts "Lock the doors!" so no more votes can be counted.

Language[edit | edit source]

Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of Parliamentary language.~ Erkine May

The House of Commons hasn't quite caught up with the 21st Century and many strange, old-fashioned things can be noticed upon watching any of the proceedings. One is that members are not allowed to use the second person or refer to each other by their real names. They may name other MPs by constituency: "The honorable member for X" or simply use variations of "The honorable gentleman/lady/friend". ("My honourable friend" is supposed to be reserved for MPs of the same party or fellow coalition members, "the honourable gentleman/lady" for members of opposing parties. A very sedate form of hilarity ensues when MPs let their true feelings about each other show and get this formulation wrong.) Privy councillors- effectively, current and past members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet- are referred to as "Right honorable".

Unparliamentary Language[edit | edit source]

Mr Speaker, I said the honourable Member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable Member may place the punctuation where he pleases.~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Up until 1983 there was a list in Erskine May detailing words and phrases that could not be used in debate. However, since then the list has been dropped as the context of the word can be as important as the word itself. There are a few general no-nos today:

  • 'hypocrisy' and imputing false motives
  • misrepresenting what someone has said
  • charges of deliberately lying (misleading, if not deliberate, is not itself unparliamentary)
  • abusive or insulting language

Despite there no longer being an official list of banned words anymore, there is still an "unoffical" one. In The Table, the journal of the Society of Clerks-at-the-Table in Commonwealth Parliaments (because that is apparently a thing) , at the end of the year they collect all the funniest remarks ruled unparliamentary so Clerks in other countries can laugh at a different set of MPs for once. Apparently, Australia always has the best anecdotes, although one year the New Zealand Parliament ruled the word "Tories" out of order so there you go.

Points of Order[edit | edit source]

Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport: I am not raising a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am raising a point of order on points of order that are not points of order.
Mr Speaker: Order. Points of order on points of order that are not points of order are not points of order

Points of Order are meant to be a way for MPs to ask the Speaker for clarity on a rule of proceedings during a debate or motion. However, they are mostly used to make a point that has nothing to do with the procedure of the House or to flirt with the Speaker.[3]

Hansard[edit | edit source]

The Official Report (also know as Hansard after T.C. Hansard the 19th century printer and publisher who produced a private report of debates) does not record everything said in the House of Commons. It follows rules set down by a select committee in 1907.

...though not strictly verbatim, is substantially the verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument.~ Sir Robert Rogers[4]

In practice, Hansard records interjections only when the MP speaking responds to them. This means that a lot of probably hilarious stuff gets left out.

Hats[edit | edit source]

Hat have historically played a very important role in the House of Commons. As well as many convoluted rules about when to wear a hat and for what purpose, hats used to be used to reserve a seat in the Commons chamber, although this practice was open to abuse and some MPs kept two hats on them.

The convention that a Member raising a Point of Order during a division should be seated with a hat on persisted until the late 20th century. A collapsible opera hat was kept at the Serjeant at Arms chair at the far end of the chamber should it ever be needed to be passed down the benches. By the 1960s most people found this outdated tradition rather embarrassing and so in 1976 the convention was sent to the Procedure Committee to be looked at with the intent that the tradition would be got rid of. But that's now how the House of Commons Procedure Committee works. They decided that the issue wasn't the tradition itself, but that it was too difficult to get the hat to the appropriate MP. Instead of getting rid of the hat altogether, they brought in a second hat at the other end of the chamber, which pretty much sums up how the Procedure Committee has operated ever since.[5]

Committees[edit | edit source]

Much of the work of the Commons takes place not in the Chamber, but in committees. It is the job of a Commons select committee to make investigations, gather evidence and scrutinise policy. In the midst of the Hackgate scandal, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee rose to lolitical fame because it was able to summon the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks for some uncomfortable questioning.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. Bryant, C., 2014, Parliament The Biography, Volume 1: Ancestral Voices, London: Doubleday
  2. Rogers, R., 2009, Order! Order! A Parliamentary Miscellany. London: RJ Books
  3. See: Brycow
  4. Rogers, R., 2009, Order! Order! A Parliamentary Miscellany. London: RJ Books
  5. Rogers, R., 2009, Order! Order! A Parliamentary Miscellany. London: RJ Books