Parliament Act 1949

Parliament Act 1949
source
Short title	Parliament Act 1949
Long title	An Act to amend the Parliament Act 1911.
Statute book chapter	12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 103
Introduced by	Herbert Morrison
Territorial extent	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Royal assent	16 December 1949
Commencement	16 December 1949
Related legislation	Parliament Act 1911
Status	Amended

Parliament Act 1949 is a significant piece of United Kingdom constitutional legislation that amended the earlier Parliament Act 1911. It further reduced the power of the House of Lords to delay legislation passed by the House of Commons, shortening the maximum period of delay from two years to one. The Act was passed by the Labour government of Clement Attlee using the provisions of the 1911 Act itself, after the Conservative-dominated Lords rejected the initial bill, setting a major constitutional precedent.

Background and context

The immediate catalyst for the legislation was the Labour government's ambitious post-war legislative agenda following its victory in the 1945 United Kingdom general election. Key measures like the Iron and Steel Act 1949, which proposed nationalising the British steel industry, faced fierce opposition from the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. Under the existing Parliament Act 1911, the Lords could delay such public bills for up to two years. Clement Attlee's government, led in the Commons by Leader of the House Herbert Morrison, sought to prevent the Lords from stalling its nationalisation programme. This political struggle occurred within the broader historical tension between the elected House of Commons and the hereditary House of Lords, a conflict famously highlighted by the People's Budget of David Lloyd George and the subsequent Parliament Act 1911.

Provisions of the Act

The Act was deliberately concise, containing only two sections. Its core provision amended Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911. It reduced the period that the House of Lords could delay a money bill from one month to one month, and, more significantly, reduced the delay for all other public bills from three sessions over two years to two sessions over one year. The Act explicitly stated it was to be construed as one with the Parliament Act 1911, meaning the two statutes would be read together as a single framework. It also retained the provisions that a bill must be passed by the House of Commons in two successive sessions and that at least one year must elapse between its Second Reading in the first session and its Third Reading in the second.

Relationship to the Parliament Act 1911

The relationship is one of direct amendment and dependency. The Parliament Act 1949 cannot be understood in isolation from its parent statute, the Parliament Act 1911. The 1911 Act created the very mechanism—allowing legislation to be enacted without the Lords' consent after a specified delay—that was used to pass the 1949 Act. This created a recursive constitutional precedent: a statute designed to limit the Lords' power was itself used to further limit that power. Crucially, the 1949 Act did not alter other key sections of the 1911 Act, such as the definition of a money bill or the provision that the Parliament Act procedure could not be used to extend the life of a Parliament.

Legislative impact and use

The Act has been invoked to pass several major pieces of legislation against the will of the House of Lords. Its first use was for the War Crimes Act 1991, which allowed British courts to prosecute alleged Nazi war criminals. It was later used for the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, which introduced a party-list proportional representation system. Its most prominent and controversial use was for the Hunting Act 2004, which banned fox hunting with dogs in England and Wales. The Act has also had a significant chilling effect, as the threat of its use has often prompted the House of Lords to acquiesce to the will of the House of Commons on other contentious bills, such as various reforms to the British constitution.

Controversy and legal challenges

The validity of the Act was challenged in the courts, most notably in the case of R (Jackson) v Attorney General in 2005. The plaintiffs, including the Countryside Alliance, argued that the Parliament Act 1949 was itself invalid because the Parliament Act 1911 could not be used to amend its own provisions relating to the Lords' delaying power. The case was heard by an Appellate Committee including Lord Bingham of Cornhill and Lord Steyn. The Law Lords unanimously upheld the Act's validity, ruling that the 1911 Act had created a new, bicameral legislative process for specified bills. This judgment confirmed the Parliament Act 1949 as a fully valid Act of Parliament, solidifying the diminished power of the House of Lords in the British constitution.

Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1949 Category:Parliament of the United Kingdom Category:House of Lords Category:Constitutional laws of the United Kingdom