ABSTRACT
Our legislature comprises ‘the Queen in Parliament’. Parliament is bicameral in that it consists of two Chambers, the House of Lords (’Upper House’) and the House of Commons (’Lower House’). At one time the House of Lords was abolished as it was considered not only ‘useless’ but also ‘dangerous’. Since the establishment of parliamentary sovereignty, with the Bill of Rights 1689, the powers of the House of Lords have been reduced in relation to the House of Commons, via the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. Nevertheless, in 1968 a government White Paper on House of Lords reform identified its primary usefulness as its appellate role as the supreme Court of Appeal, a forum for free debate on matters of public interest, the initiation and revision of public bills, the consideration of delegated legislation, scrutiny of the executive and scrutiny of private legislation. You should consider whether these functions, as identified in 1968, are as applicable to the Chamber in the present day. Certainly some
of the functions have increased in usefulness. An illustration of this is the consideration of delegated legislation, which has grown in importance subsequent to the European Communities Act 1972 and our membership of the European Union. The role of the judiciary in scrutinising the executive via the judicial review function has also involved the House of Lords in its appellate role as a Supreme Court of Appeal. Cases such as the Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for Civil Service (1985) and M v Home Office ex parte Baker (1993) illustrate the usefulness of this function. Recent cases such as R v Secretary of State for Employment ex parte EOC (1994) serve to illustrate the importance of the European dimension in this task.
