The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 are two crucial pieces of constitutional law that establish the legislative supremacy of the elected House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords.

The acts provide a legal procedure by which a proposed law (a bill) can become an act of parliament even if it is rejected by the House of Lords. They provide a constitutional “backstop” that ensures the will of the democratic chamber can ultimately prevail in the event of a sustained disagreement with the second chamber.

The power is used very rarely and only as a last resort when all attempts at compromise between the two Houses have failed.

How the Parliament Acts work

The procedure for using the Parliament Acts is different for financial legislation (‘Money Bills’) and for other general legislation.

Procedure for general legislation

The Parliament Acts provide a delaying power for the House of Lords, not a complete veto. The original 1911 Act allowed the Lords to delay a bill for two years over three sessions. This was reduced by the Parliament Act 1949 to one year over two sessions.

Under the current constitutional framework, set out in the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, to receive royal assent without the agreement of the House of Lords:

• A bill must be passed by the House of Commons in two successive parliamentary sessions.
• At least one year must have elapsed between the date the bill was given its second reading in the commons in the first session and the date it was passed by the commons in the second session.
• The bill in the second session must be substantively identical to the bill introduced in the first session.
• If the bill is rejected or not passed by the House of Lords in both of these sessions, it can then be presented for royal assent without the Lords’ consent.
• The speaker of the House of Commons must certify that necessary conditions have been met.

The Parliament Acts cannot be used to pass a bill that would extend the life of a Parliament beyond five years.

The Parliament Act 1911 also amended the Septennial Act 1715, reducing the maximum duration of a parliament from seven to five years.

Procedure for Money Bills

A Money Bill is a specific and technical category of legislation defined by the Parliament Act 1911. To qualify as a Money Bill, a bill must contain only provisions dealing with a narrow range of financial matters, such as central government taxation, public spending, or loans.

Bills that fall into this category are typically those that authorise the government’s access to public funds. These are essential pieces of legislation required to keep government services running.

The speaker of the House of Commons has the sole and unchallengeable authority to certify that a Bill meets the strict definition of a Money Bill. They may be expected to take advice on this, however, including from two members of the panel of chairs. (The panel of chairs is made up of MPs chosen by the House of Commons speaker, typically at the beginning of every parliament, to chair public bill committees and other commons general committees.)

This certificate is endorsed on the bill before it is sent to the House of Lords.

The Parliament Act 1911 places severe restrictions on the ability of the House of Lords to scrutinise a certified Money Bill.

Erskine May, the authoritative account of parliamentary procedure, outlines that a Money Bill that has been “passed by the House of Commons and sent up to the House of Lords at least one month before the end of the session, but is not passed by the House of Lords without amendment within one month after it is so sent up, is, unless the House of Commons direct to the contrary, to be presented for the royal assent.”

As such, the Parliament Act 1911 provides a complete block on any potential interference by the Lords in the core financial authorisations required by the government.

Bills passed using the Parliament Acts

The power has only been used seven times since its introduction. The original 1911 act was used on three occasions before the passage of the 1949 act.

• The Welsh Church Act 1914, which disestablished the Church in Wales.
• The Government of Ireland Act 1914, which granted home rule to Ireland.
• The Parliament Act 1949, which amended the 1911 Act itself.

Four acts have received royal assent without the consent of the Lords since the passage of the 1949 act.

• The War Crimes Act 1991, which allowed the prosecution of alleged Nazi war criminals living in the UK. (This remains the only time that the Parliament Acts were invoked by a Conservative government.)
• The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, which changed the voting system for European Parliament elections to a form of proportional representation.
• The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which equalised the age of consent for gay and heterosexual people.
• The Hunting Act 2004, which banned fox hunting with dogs in England and Wales.

The Hunting Act 2004

The Parliament Acts were most recently used to pass the Hunting Act 2004.

In 2003, an anti-hunting bill was passed by the commons and blocked by the House of Lords, which was bitterly opposed to the plan.

The government reintroduced the bill in September 2004.

Opening the 15 September debate, House of Commons speaker Michael Martin told the House: “This bill is identical to the bill to which this House gave a third reading on 9 July 2003…

“The House of Lords did not complete its proceedings on the bill before the end of the previous session, although it had the time to do so. The government are now bringing the bill back to enable this House, if it so chooses, to insist on the bill and, if it is again rejected by the House of Lords, to pass it under the [Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949].”

After receiving its second and third readings on the same day, the Hunting Bill duly progressed to the House of Lords. Peers tried once more to amend the bill to allow regulated hunting of foxes to continue.

On 17 November, MPs rejected the move by 321 votes to 204.

On 18 November, Martin formally certified that the bill could be presented for royal assent.

Martin told MPs: “As the minister made clear to the House in his remarks earlier today, a rejection on these lines has brought us to the end of the road.

“I am satisfied that all the provisions of the Parliament Acts have been met. Accordingly, I have to tell the House that I have certified the Hunting Bill under section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911, as amended by the Parliament Act 1949. The bill endorsed by me will be sent for royal assent at the time of prorogation in compliance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts.”

The bill therefore became law without the consent of the House of Lords.

The passage of the act was so controversial that its legality was subsequently challenged in the courts by pro-hunting groups.

They argued that the 1949 Parliament Act, which had reduced the Lords’ delaying power to one year and was itself passed using the 1911 Act, was invalid. The pro-hunting position claimed the commons could not lawfully use the 1911 procedure to permanently reduce the Lords’ delaying power.

Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, who represented the hunting supporters, argued: “The 1949 Act was beyond the powers of the House of Commons and the Hunting Act falls with it.”

In January 2005, the law lords (before the establishment of the supreme court) ultimately dismissed the case and the validity of the 1949 act was thereby affirmed.

The hunting ban took effect on 18 February 2005.

The Parliament Act 1911: how did it come into being?

David Lloyd George, the chancellor of the exchequer, introduced the People’s Budget to the House of Commons on 29 April 1909. It was a radical fiscal package designed to fund naval expansion with the construction of new Dreadnought battleships, as well as sweeping new social welfare programmes.

In his budget statement, Lloyd George recognised the observation that no chancellor had ever imposed such “heavy taxes in a time of peace”. But he described his proposals as a “war budget” that would raise “money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness”.

In total, the Finance Bill was subjected to 70 days of debate and 554 divisions in the commons.

On 22 November 1909, the Marquess of Lansdowne, the leader of the Conservative/Unionists in the Lords, broke with precedent. He moved a reasoned amendment to the Finance Bill at its second reading. He posited that the Lords was “not justified in giving its consent to this bill until it has been submitted to the judgment of the country.”

Lansdowne argued that the government was abusing the privileges of the commons by “tacking” non-financial legislation onto a Finance Bill.

He argued that the insistence of the prime minister, H.H. Asquith, that the budget has “far-reaching political and social results”, amounted to proof that the Finance Bill moved beyond dealing solely with merely financial matters.

On 30 November, after a week of debate, peers in the Conservative-dominated chamber divided. They rejected the bill by a decisive margin of 350 votes to 75.

The Liberal government, now led by H. H. Asquith as prime minister, was outraged. He called an immediate general election in pursuit of a mandate. On 2 December 1909, the Liberal-controlled lower chamber passed a resolution which condemned the budget veto as a “breach of the constitution and a usurpation of the rights of the commons”.

In a campaign speech at the Albert Hall, Asquith declared: “The absolute [Lords’] veto which it at present possesses must go.”

But the January 1910 election did not return a Liberal majority. Rather, the Conservatives under Balfour made significant gains, winning 272 seats – a net gain of 116. Asquith remained prime minister with his Liberal Party relying on the Irish nationalists and Labour MPs for its commons majority.

John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), used his party’s influence to secure commitments from Asquith. Redmond refused to pass the People’s Budget until he had been assured that power of the Lords would be broken. This outcome, Redmond figured, would remove the final obstacle to Irish home rule – his party’s ultimate objective.

Redmond called on the prime minister to give the IPP “reasonable assurances that he would be able to carry his veto bill into law this year”. Then, he said, “we will not abstain from voting on the budget. We will vote for it.”

Redmond’s “assurances” were a reference to the suggestion that King Edward VII should pack the Lords (appoint hundreds of Liberal peers under the royal prerogative) to force through reform.

Asquith, who relied on the IPP’s votes, proceeded to press both measures – on the budget and Lords veto – concurrently.

On 27 April, seven days after its re-introduction, the People’s Budget secured its commons third reading by 324 votes to 231. But peers had crossed a constitutional Rubicon and Asquith was now committed to seeing the struggle through. The introduction and passage of the Parliament Bill ensured the continuance of the constitutional crisis.

The bill began a predictable constitutional stand-off. Asquith threatened to advise King Edward VII to create hundreds of new Liberal peers. This was the same threat employed by Earl Grey, Whig prime minister from 1830 to 1834, to secure the passage of the Great Reform Act. In 1711, Queen Anne created 12 Tory peers to vote through the Treaty of Utrecht.

Before the Parliament Acts, ‘packing the House’ – or at least the threat of it – remained the only constitutional mechanism that could resolve such parliamentary stalemate.

Edward VII’s death in May 1910 triggered an uneasy truce.

Asquith, wanting to avoid a constitutional crisis so early into the reign of King George V, convened a conference to consider the issue. Discussions continued for some months. But after 21 meetings, the constitutional conference ended on 10 November without agreement.

Asquith resolved to call another general election for the following month. It did not change the parliamentary arithmetic. The Liberals lost two seats; the Conservatives gained one.

Another hung parliament meant the Irish nationalists would once again hold the balance of power. Appeasing the party led by John Redmond meant recommitting to Irish home rule; but the government could not solve the ‘Irish obstruction’ without first dealing with the obstruction of the Lords. The Liberal Party was pitted ever more squarely against the Lords.

Parliament reconvened in February 1911 and the Parliament Bill was reintroduced. As expected, the bill faced intense opposition in the Lords. The crisis reached its zenith in the summer of 1911 when, after months of deadlock, it emerged that Asquith had secured a secret commitment from George V that the sovereign would, if necessary, create hundreds of new Liberal peers sufficient to overcome the Conservative/Unionist majority in the Lords.

The commons sitting of 24 July 1911 was extraordinarily bitter.

Asquith, having entered the chamber to cries of “Traitor” from the opposition benches, confirmed that the commons would not accept the Lords’ latest amendments to the Parliament Bill.

The Lords debated the commons counter-amendments on 9 and 10 August 1911. The Conservative leadership under Lord Lansdowne reluctantly advised his colleagues to abstain rather than risk the destruction of the hereditary peerage’s character. But the opposition bloc in the upper chamber was divided between those, like Lansdowne, who believed further opposition would be the end of the Lords (the “hedgers”) – and those who wanted to oppose Asquith until the death (the “ditchers”).

With his party divided, Lansdowne told his fellow Lords that “if we persist in our proposals, we are to be voted down by a body of newly-created peers.”

The Parliament Bill ultimately passed the Lords by 131 votes to 114 – a majority of 17.

The ultimate result was the Parliament Act 1911.

This landmark piece of legislation introduced two key changes. Firstly, it completely removed the Lords’ power to veto ‘Money Bills’ (those certified by the speaker as relating solely to taxation or public spending). Secondly, for other public bills, it replaced the Lords’ absolute veto with a power to delay legislation for a maximum of two years, spread over three parliamentary sessions.

The act also reduced the maximum duration of a parliament from seven years to five.

The Parliament Act 1949: how did it come into being?

The passage of the Parliament Act 1949 was intimately linked to the Labour government’s programme of nationalisation – specifically its plan to nationalise the steel industry.

Labour’s 1945 general election manifesto included a commitment to legislate for the “public ownership of iron and steel”. It said the existing “private monopoly” had maintained “high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence.”

But splits emerged within the Labour Party over the measure.

On 17 April 1946, the cabinet heard that steel nationalisation was “undoubtedly the most difficult nationalisation project which the government had yet entertained”. It was said that “doubts” had begun to emerge from within the Labour Party over whether the industry should be nationalised. Nevertheless, in July, 143 Labour MPs signed a petition demanding the immediate introduction of a bill for full nationalisation, explicitly rejecting any compromise.

Division and political anxieties engineered a delay in finalising a collective government position on steel nationalisation. This delay meant the measure risked running afoul of the effective veto peers held over legislation in the final two years of a parliament.

The Parliament Act 1911 reduced the power of the Lords from absolute veto to two-year delay. In the final phase of a parliament therefore, the Lords delay amounted to an effective veto – compelling ministers to drop bills, amend proposed legislation or call an election. The last two years of a parliament’s life, when there was a non-Tory majority in the commons, would become moribund.

To circumvent this, the government introduced the Parliament Bill (later the Parliament Act 1949) to reduce the Lords’ delaying power from two years to one. This would allow steel nationalisation legislation to be introduced into the 1948-1949 parliamentary session. Labour could procrastinate and postpone nationalisation, therefore, without risking its defeat at the hands of the effective Lords veto, and steel would still be nationalised before a general election in 1950.

Responding to the new Parliament Bill, Harold Macmillan, the future Conservative prime minister, joked that the cabinet had “vetoed [steel nationalisation] a year themselves”.

In September 1948, a short parliamentary session began – solely organised to satisfy the Parliament Act 1911. The 1911 act stipulated that a bill needed to be passed by MPs in three “successive sessions” over a period of not less than two years.

To safeguard its agenda, the Attlee government planned to use the Parliament Act 1911 to pass a new Parliament Bill. This new legislation, further reducing the power of the Lords, would then be used to pass steel nationalisation.

The October 1948 king’s speech – the second speech from the throne in as many months – contained the much-expected measure on the nationalisation of the steel industry. The address from the throne also implored parliamentarians to “consider further the bill to amend the Parliament Act 1911 on which during the last two sessions your Houses have disagreed”. A third passage through the House of Commons would fulfil the terms of the 1911 act and see the bill safely through to royal assent.

On 31 October 1949, with peers in the process of resisting the Iron and Steel Bill, the commons considered the Parliament Bill at second reading for the third time in two years. The Parliament Bill secured its third reading in the commons, for the third time, on 14 November. It passed by 340 votes to 187.

When it came to the steel nationalisation, however, Attlee’s ministry backed down. They agreed to a vesting date – the date on which the new corporation would formally take ownership of the companies – that would push steel nationalisation beyond the next election.

Months and years of delay meant the new Parliament Act would not come into force quickly enough. By backing down, ministers could ensure that steel nationalisation reached the statute book before the election. It would be up to the next government to either enact or repeal the legislation.

The House of Lords considered the Parliament Bill again on 29 November, no longer in the shadow of the steel nationalisation. Peers rejected the bill for the final time by 110 votes to 37. But this last stand was ultimately futile. Under the terms of the Parliament Act 1911, the Parliament Act 1949 received royal assent on 16 December.

The Parliament Act 1949 was not, in the end, activated by any bill introduced by the Attlee government.

Labour won the 1950 election, but with a significantly reduced majority. The party secured a majority of just five seats – some distance short of the 146-seat majority it enjoyed after the 1945 election.

The Iron and Steel Corporation was nonetheless constituted; the vesting date eventually arrived on 15 February 1951. The new nationalised steel regime was always likely to be unstable, however, due to the lack of political consensus. And following the Conservative victory in the general election of October 1951, Winston Churchill’s new government moved quickly to repeal the Iron and Steel Act.

The Parliament Act 1949, however, survived.

The Salisbury convention

The Parliament Acts are complemented by a separate, but related, constitutional convention known as the Salisbury convention (or Salisbury-Addison convention).

This convention holds that the House of Lords should not vote down a government bill at its second or third reading if the bill seeks to implement a policy that was contained in the governing party’s election manifesto.

The rationale is that the unelected House should not block a policy that has been given a democratic mandate by the electorate.

As a result, the Parliament Acts are most likely to be invoked when the House of Lords resists or rejects government legislation that is not clearly covered by the governing party’s manifesto. In these cases, the Lords may be more willing to oppose the bill, potentially forcing the government to rely on the Parliament Acts to secure its passage.

The convention came about during Clement Attlee’s tenure as prime minister (1945-1951). Attlee, the first prime minister of a majority Labour government, faced a large and possibly hostile Conservative majority in the House of Lords.

Responding to the 1945 king’s speech, however, the Marquess of Salisbury, the Conservative leader in the House of Lords, said that it would be “constitutionally wrong” for the Lords “to oppose proposals which have been definitely put before the electorate.” This principle has since been referred to as the Salisbury convention, therefore, or Salisbury-Addison convention (after Viscount Addison, the leader of the House of Lords at the time).

Notably, Conservative peers saw steel nationalisation as an exception to this rule, which formed the primary rationale behind the Attlee government’s decision to pass the Parliament Act 1949.

In his memoir, As It Happened, Attlee recounted his relationship with the Lords as prime minister. He said Labour experienced “no trouble” across its first three years in power after the 1945 election. Rather, the House of Lords “fulfilled a useful role as a debating forum and a revising chamber.”

But he said it was clear that the “Iron and Steel Bill would not get through the Lords without the use of the Parliament Bill”.

He added: “In my view, the period of delay imposed by this measure before the will of the elected chamber could prevail was too long. Accordingly it was decided to introduce a measure shortening the period by which measures passed in the commons could be held up…

“The Conservatives naturally put up strong opposition, but were somewhat embarrassed by the fact that the best shots in our oratorical locker were provided by extracts from the speeches of their own leader when he was a Liberal [Churchill during the debates over the 1911 Parliament Act].”

On his nationalisation plans, Attlee said that only “iron and steel roused much feeling, perhaps because hopes of profit were greater here than elsewhere.”

In 1964, Salisbury reflected on his relationship with the Attlee government. He said that due to the large Labour majority in the commons, Conservative peers adopted the “broad guiding rule that what had been on the Labour Party programme at the preceding general election should be regarded as having been approved by the British people.”

Salisbury added: “Therefore… we passed all the nationalisation bills, although we cordially disliked them, on the second reading and did our best to improve them and make them more workable at committee stage.

“Where, however, measures were introduced which had not been in the Labour Party manifesto at the preceding election, we reserved full liberty of action.”