THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS
See Also: EXECUTIONS The Death Penalty; THE
HONOURABLE RIGHT HONOURABLE; THE HOUSE
OF LORDS; LIONS The Lion-Taming M.P.; PARLIAMENT;
Website:
www.parliament.uk/business/commons
The Commons Chamber
The
government of the day sits to the Speaker's right and Her Majesty's Opposition
to the left.
There
is a line in front of each of the two sets of front benches. They are two sword lengths distance from one
another. No M.P. is allowed to cross
their line while the House is in session.
The purpose of the marks is to prevent Members from engaging in acts
physical violence against one another.
In 1941
the Chamber was wrecked as the result of being struck by an aerial bomb. Prior to then there had not been enough
benches in the room to enable all of the House's members to sit in it together. It would have been a simple matter for the
space to have been rebuilt so that it could have seated all of the
legislators. However, there was a
substantial body of M.P.s, of whom Churchill was one, who believed that the
limited number of places helped to engender the Chamber's particular
atmosphere. This they held influenced
the nature of the debates that took place there. In turn, these informed the character of
British democracy. The group carried the
matter. After the war, Sir Giles Gilbert
Scott, an architect who was deeply versed in the Gothic Revival style, was
commissioned to rebuild the assembly room.
In 1950 the Lower House returned to the space. There are 427 seats for the 651 M.P.s. On those occasions when every seat on their
side of the House has already been taken, late-arriving Members have to stand
behind its rear benches.
Location:
The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA. The Chamber is to the east of the northern
portion of Westminster Hall. (purple, blue)
See
Also: HOTELS The Midland Grand Hotel; ST PAUL's CATHEDRAL The
Cathedral and The Second World War; THE SECOND WORLD WAR The Bombing of London;
SNUFF Commons Snuff
Baiting
Many
M.P.s are seasoned in the art of baiting their fellow Members across the floor
of the Chamber.
In 1981
Geoffrey Dickens had a dalliance with a lady who was not Mrs Dickens. In an attempt to try to control the story, he
informed the press of his misconduct.
The Conservative M.P. let slip that he had met the woman at a tea
dance. When one of the journalists asked
him how his wife felt about the matter, the backbencher suddenly realised that
he had not yet told her about it.
Thereafter, Dickens, when speaking in the Chamber, was taunted with
cries of Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow .
Quentin
Davies was fined 1500 under the Protection of Animals Act of 1911 for cruelty
to sheep after a flock of the animals starved to death on his property. As a result, whenever the M.P. rose to speak
in the Commons a chorus of baaing would break out.
There
is a story that upon one occasion a renowned Labour backbencher, while speaking
in the Chamber, stated that half of the Conservatives present were liars. The Speaker intervened and instructed him to
withdraw the comment. The M.P. complied
with this injunction. He then stated
that half of the Tories before him were not given to lying.
Partial
Voting
The way
in which Commons divisions are held involves M.P.s walking through one of two
doorways. One of these indicates
approval for the motion and the other opposition to it. At a given point the two doors are closed in
unison. After that time legislators can
no longer cast a vote upon the contended issue.
In 1968
there was a division on a Finance Bill.
As the portals were being shut the Labour M.P. Walter Harrison forced
his way through one of them. Iain
Macleod, a Conservative, challenged the validity of the man's participation in
the proceedings. Harrison stated that at
the crucial juncture he had been three-quarters in the Chamber and that
subsequently he had pulled in after him the leg that had been external to
it. The presiding Chairman declared the
matter to have been carried by 22 votes to 22.
Lunatics
It was
reported in 2008 that the Parliamentary authorities were considering revoking
the 15thC legislation that barred lunatics from sitting as
M.P.s. At the time, if a Member had been
sectioned under the Mental Health Act for six months, s/he was obligated give
up her/his seat. In view of changed
attitudes towards psychiatric issues this requirement was regarded as having
become antiquated.
See
Also: MENTAL HEALTH
The Members' Lobby
Access
to the Members' Lobby only became limited to M.P.s and certain journalists
after a terrorist attack took place there in 1884. The Lobby reporters include the
representatives of national daily newspapers and weeklies, provincial newspaper
chains, and assorted radio and television journalists. At any given juncture a couple of hundred
media workers have access to the space.
Anything that is said by a Member in the Lobby has an automatic
anonymous attribution given to it unless the politician wishes to be associated
with the statement; the purpose of this informal rule is to encourage M.P.s to
speak more freely than they might do otherwise.
See
Also: FOREIGN RELATIONS Chatham House, The Chatham House Rule; THE POLICE
The Metropolitan Police, The Special Branch
Fleet
Hares and Provincial Tortoises
In
terms of media manipulation, politicians were reputed during the 20thC
to be most wary of those journalists who worked for provincial newspapers. This was because Fleet Street ones had to be
distributed nationally overnight, therefore, their journalists had to meet very
tight deadlines. Ergo, if a
politician wished to leak a story, the national reporters had only a short time
in which time to write it up and sometimes did not have the opportunity in
which to assess its true character. For
an individual national newspaper to fail to publish the story would have made
it appear to be lacklustre in comparison to its rivals. In contrast, the regional newspapers, with
their local distribution networks, did not have to go to press so early. Therefore, their journalists had an extra two
or three hours in which to mull over a story and to follow up leads that might
cast it in a light that was different from the one in which the originator
wished it might be seen.
Most of
the national newspaper's Parliamentary correspondents are based along the
palace's Burma Road corridor.
See
Also: PRINTING Fleet Street
Lightness
of Touch
Towards
the close of the 20thC the character of Parliamentary sketch writing
shifted its character. A trio of
broadsheet journalists - Simon Hoggart of The Guardian, Frank Johnson
(1943-2006) of The Daily Telegraph, and Matthew Paris of The Times
- started to inject an entertaining lightness of touch to their coverage that
often bordered upon frivolity. This was
a development that some M.P.s took exception to.
It was
Johnson who coined the term the chattering classes .
The Monarch and The House of Commons
In
1642, during the political troubles that preceded the outbreak of the Civil
Wars, King Charles I and a troop of soldiers entered the Commons Chamber in
order to try to arrest five particularly irksome M.P.s. The House had been forewarned of the
monarch's intended action and the men had already left it before the sovereign
arrived. Upon his entry into the room,
the king was informed by the Speaker of the Commons that The birds have
flown . Since that occasion the monarch
only formally enters the Chamber with the House's permission; a rare instance
of such was the visit that King George VI made in 1950 to inspect the repairs
that had been carried out after the Chambers's wartime bombing.
(In the
late 17thC and the early 18thC the sovereign would
sometimes attend a debate in which s/he had a particular interest. Upon such occasions, s/he would be present on
an anonymous basis rather than an official one.)
See
Also: ROYALTY; WALLS & GATEWAYS Temple Bar
Money Bills
In 1407
King Henry IV assented to the principle that money grants should originate in
the Commons. The Lower House's dominance
of financial matters was by no means firmly established right away. Nearly 300 years later the Lords still felt
able to interfere in money bills upon occasion.
Eventually, the two Chambers agreed to accept one another's dominance of
particular spheres, the Upper House having justice. It was upon the Commons's ability to hold the
government to financial ransom that its eventual political dominance over its
sib was to be based.
See
Also: DOWNING STREET No. 11 Downing Street; INNS & TAVERNS The Star
& Garter, The Wicked Lord Byron
Website:
www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/money-bills
Parliamentary Privilege
During
the early 20thC Horace de Vere Cole was Britain's most renowned
practical joker. One day he was walking
up Bury Street with his friend the M.P. Oliver Locker-Lampson. The Parliamentarian boasted that, as a member
of the Commons, he could not be arrested.
Unobserved, de Vere Cole slipped his own wallet into one of his
companion's jacket pockets. The
conversation moved on and the hoaxer, judging that circumstances had reached
the right condition, challenged Locker-Lampson to a race up the street. The legislator accepted and both men started
running towards Piccadilly. De Vere Cole
fell behind and shouted out Stop, thief!
A policeman whom he had seen walking down the road tackled the Parliamentarian. De Vere Cole exclaimed that the man had
stolen his wallet. This was duly
recovered from Locker-Lampson's person.
Upon hearing of the incident, Winston Churchill felt prompted to comment
that de Vere Cole was a very dangerous man ... to his friends .
Location:
Bury Street, SW1Y 6AB (purple, yellow)
See
Also: HORACE DE VERE COLE; RUNNING
Website:
www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/parliamentary-privilege
St Stephen's Chapel
One of
the means by which the Reformation was wrought was the Chantries Act of
1547. This required that all religious
services must be held in public places; this was done so that their doctrinal
orthodoxy could be monitored by the state.
As a result, all private chapels were deconsecrated, including those
within royal palaces. The Palace of
Westminster's St Stephen's Chapel became a secular room.
That
year the Commons moved their meetings back into the Palace, taking up residence
in St Stephen's. The House's seating
arrangement is reputed to be descended from the lay-out of the chapel's choir
stalls. The custom of M.P.s bowing to
the Speaker's chair is thought to derive from the seat having been placed where
the altar had been. The first M.P.s who
had used the Chapel had been inclined to genuflect towards it through habit.
Website:
www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/ststephenschapel
The Speaker of The Commons
The
late 19thC prime minister Lord Rosebery once voiced the opinion that
all Commons Speakers are highly successful, their passing or departure is
deeply regretted. They are declared to
be irreplaceable. Yet, a new Speaker is
always found amongst the mediocrities who sit in the Chamber.
In
Medieval and Early Modern times it was the Speaker who had to communicate
Parliament's wishes to the Crown. These
were often unwelcome and the official would have to face the monarch s
anger. As a result, once s/he has been
selected, s/he is ceremonially dragged to the Chair.
There
is a custom that the Speaker of the Commons is autonomous. In 2009 Michael Martin (1945-2018) failed to
observe this convention for the first time since 1695. He was forced out of the office after it
became evident that he had failed to properly supervise the Fees Office, which
oversaw M.P.s expenses and then misjudging public opinion by trying to exempt
M.P.s from press scrutiny by claiming Parliamentary privilege exempted them
from the Freedom of Information Act.
Website:
www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker
David
Backhouse 2024