Constitutional and Administrative Law

The House of Commons is the repository for elected legitimacy in the UK’s national system of governance. Over the course of the twentieth century, this political fact relegated the House of Lords to the status of a subordinate chamber. This chapter examines the reason why the House of Commons came to dominate the UK Parliament by considering the problems with the composition of the House of Lords (it is a largely appointed House which still retains some hereditary membership) and the process by which the Commons came to strip the Lords of its equal role in the UK’s law-making process (replacing the Lords’ veto over legislation with a mere delaying power). This chapter also considers the role that this subordinate chamber continues to play in the legislative process. Today, the work of the House of Lords is dominated by scrutinising and, where necessary, revising legislation produced by the Commons. The unelected nature of the UK’s second chamber remains a contentious constitutional issue, one which has not been solved despite frequent reform proposals in the last two decades.