ings. [17, pp.57-58]
.3 The House of Lords
House of Lords appeared first as King s council consisting of Lords and barons. Now the House is a partly hereditary upper chamber. It comprises 26 Lords Spiritual (two of which are archbishops of Canterbury and York, the rest senior bishops of Church of England), 92 Lords Temporal (lay peers). Law Lords (senior judges) also sit as Lords Temporal. Up to 1958, the Lords Temporal were all either hereditary peers or Law Lords. In 1958, however, the Life Peerages Act was passed, which entitled the Queen to give non-hereditary titles or life peerages to both men and women. The Queen exercises this prerogative on the advice of the Prime Minister. A new Appointments Commission has operated a nomimations system for cross-bench peers since 2000. Since the House of Lords Act of 1999, only 92 peers sit by virtue of hereditary peerage, 75 of whom were elected by their respective party groups. The remaining 17 are office holders or have ceremonial offices. The total number of persons thus qualified to sit in the House of Lords is in excess of 670. [13, p.65] Speaker of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor s powers as Speaker are very limited compared with those of the Speaker of the House of Commons, since the Lords themselves control the proceedings and maintain order in their House. Lord Chancellor is a government officer, responsible for the administration of justice and an automatic member of the Cabinet.Lord Chancellor sits on a special seat called the Woolsack. The Woolsack was introduced by King Edward III in the 14 th century and originally stuffed with English wool as a reminder of England s traditional source of wealth - the wool trade - and a sign of prosperity. Today the Woolsack is stuffed with wool from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to symbolize unity.are also a number of other office holders in the House of Lords. These include ministers, government whips, the Leader and Chief Whip of the main opposition party, and two Chairmen of Committees. These office holders and officers, together with the Law Lords, receive salaries. All other members of the House of Lords are unpaid, but they are entitled to reimbursement of their expenses, within maximum limits for each day on which they attend the House. The Clerk of the Parliaments is head of the administration. [18, pp.44-45] a century ago the Lords had the power of absolute veto over any legislation passed by the House of Commons. After a great struggle this was finally abolished by the Parliament Act of 1911. But it left the Lords with the power to delay a bill for two years and since 1949 the period reduced to one year. After one year the bill is passed even without the Lords agreement.all the parliaments in the world, the lowest quorum needed to adopt a decision is the House of Lords. Three Lords present will make a quorum and will be capable to take any decision. Lords are far freer to vote according to their own convictions rather than party policy than are Members of the House of Commons. [15, p.79]
.4 The Work of Parliament
parliamentary session begins with the State Opening of Parliament, a ceremonial occasion when the Queen announces the programme of the work of Parliament for the coming session.brief opening formalities the working day of Parliament begi...
