Britain: An official handbook > 1966

GOVERNMENT
39
In practice, the Lords pass without amendment all financial Bills, such as
the Finance Bill, which authorises annual taxation and amends existing
taxation, and the Appropriation Bill, which authorises expenditure on the
Supply Services from the Consolidated Fund.1 As a general rule, these Bills
are introduced upon resolutions in a committee of the whole House of
Commons and they may be initiated only by a Minister of the Crown.
When Bills have passed through their various parliamentary stages, they are
sent to the Sovereign for Royal Assent, now usually given by commission.
The Sovereign’s power to refuse assent has not been exercised since the early
eighteenth century.
The majority of Bills introduced in the House of Lords pass through the
Commons without difficulty because of their non-controversial nature; they
are then returned to the Lords to be brought forward for Royal Assent.
However, should any Lords Bill be unacceptable to the Commons, it would
never reach the Statute Book, for no debating time would be allotted to it
at any rate until a new government came into power, when it might be
revived. The Lords, on the other hand, are unlikely to be able to prevent a
Bill insisted upon by the Commons from finally becoming law. In the normal
course of events, they either accept a Bill from the Commons and return it
unchanged; or they revise and improve it by amendments and return it for
the consideration of members of the other House, who frequently agree to
the amendments made. The Lords cannot require the Commons to agree to
amendments; nor can they delay a Bill indefinitely. They have no powers in
respect of Money Bills; and, since the passing of the Parliament Act 1949,
any other Public Bill which has been passed by the House of Commons in
two successive sessions may be presented for Royal Assent without the consent
of the Lords, provided that a year has elapsed between the date of the Second
Reading of the Bill in the Commons and the date on which it is finally passed
in that House. These limitations on the powers of the Lords are based on the
belief that the chief value of the Upper House, which is a non-elected assembly,
lies in bringing the wide experience of its members into the legislative process!
not in thwarting the elected House. In other words, proceedings in the House
of Lords give time for further reflection, and often elicit new points of view.
In substance, a Private Bill goes through the same procedure as a Public
Bill but most of the work is done in committee, where the promoters must
prove the need for the powers or privileges that they seek and where any
objections raised by opposing interests may be heard.
A committee of the whole House is presided over by a chairman instead of
the Speaker. Its function is to consider Bills in detail, clause by clause, after
their Second Reading. The Committees of Supply and of Ways and Means
are committees of the whole House of Commons; they discharge the financial
duties of the House concerning the grant of public money and the levying
of taxation.
There are two other main kinds of parliamentary committee, both of
which exist to relieve their parent House of some of its more specialised and
complex work. They are:
(1) Standing Committees, which are appointed by the House of Commons
as necessary, for the consideration of the committee stage of Public
Bills and, in the case of the Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees,
1 It is provided in the Parliament Act 1911 that all Money Bills sent to the House of
Lords one month before the end of the session shall receive the Royal Assent notwith¬
standing, if they are not passed by the Lords without amendment within the month.