Answer the questions

1. Which of these people are not elected: a peer, an MP, a civil servant, the Prime Minister?

2. What is the difference between life peers and hereditary peers, Lords'" Temporal and Lords Spiritual?

3. What are civil servants?

4. Which areas of government do these people deal with: the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor?

Work in pairs and discuss the following questions

1. What differences are there between Parliament and the Government?

2. What are the similarities and differences between the UK parliamentary system and that of your own country?

PARLIAMENT

Complete the following text with the words and expressions from the box

The House of Commons

This is the House of Commons, where Members of Parliament take their seats on the green leather (a)_________according to their party and position. One of them is chosen to be the (b)________ , who acts as a kind of chairman of the (c)_________which take place in the House. In front of him on his right sit the MPs of the biggest party, which forms the government, and facing them sit the MPs of the parties who oppose them, the (d)_________ .

The leaders of these two groups sit at the front on each side. MPs without special positions in their parties sit behind their leaders at the back. They are called (e) _________. The leader of the government, the (f)__________ , sits on the government (g) _________, of course, next to his or her (h)__________. The most important of these form the (i)_________. The minister responsible for relations with other countries is called the (j) _________. The one responsible for law and security is called the (k)________. The one who deals with financial matters and prepares the annual (1)_________speech on the economic state of the country is called the (m)_________. Opposite this group sits the (n)_________ (the main person in the largest party opposing the government) and the (o)_________, each member of which specializes in a particular area of government.

Read the text

MAKING NEW LAWS: BILLS AND ACTS

1. The functions of Parliament are: making laws; providing money for the government through taxation; examining government policy, administration and spending; debating political questions.

2. Every year Parliament passes about a hundred laws directly, by making Acts of Parliament. Because this can be a long process, Parliament sometimes passes a very general law and leaves a minister to fill in the details. In this way, it indirectly passes about 2,000 additional rules and regulations.

3. No new law can be passed unless it has completed a number of stages in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The monarch also has to give a Bill the Royal Assent, which is now just a formality. Since 1707 no sovereign has refused a Bill. Whilst a law is still going through Parliament it is called a Bill. There are two main types of Bills - Public Bills which deal with matters of public importance and Private Bills which deal with local matters and individuals.

4. Public and Private Bills are passed through Parliament in much the same way. When a Bill is introduced in the House of Commons, it receives a formal first reading. It is then printed and read a second time, when it is debated but not amended. After the second reading the Bill is referred to a committee, either a special committee made up of certain members of the House, or to the House itself as a committee. Here it is discussed in detail and amended, if necessary. The Bill is then presented for a third reading and is debated. If the Bill is passed by the Commons it goes to the Lords, and provided it is not rejected by them, it goes through the same procedure as in the Commons. After receiving the Royal Assent the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. In order to be enforced, it must be published in Statute form, becoming a part of Statute Law. The power of the Lords to reject a Bill has been severely curtailed. A money Bill must be passed by the Lords without amendment within a month of being presented in the House. The Act of 1949 provides that any Public Bill passed by the Commons in two successive parliamentary sessions and rejected both times by the Lords, may be presented for the Royal Assent, even though it has not been passed by the Lords. The Lords, therefore, can only delay the passage of a Public Bill, they cannot reject it.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1408