Historical Development of the UK Constitution: Parliament Acts (1911 & 1949)

The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 were important steps in the development of the UK constitution.

The Liberal Party, elected in 1906 with a landslide majority, introduced a programme of social reform encompassing such measures as national insurance, old age pensions and free meals for school children. To finance the change David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister, attempted to pass a redistributive finance bill in 1909 subsequently termed the ‘People’s Budget’. A constitutional crisis ensued as the House of Lords, dominated by Conservative peers, refused to pass the budget and the controversy rumbled on through two elections in 1910. 

To resolve the crisis and prevent the Lords holding up parliamentary business to such an extent again, the Parliament Bill of 1911 removed the Lords’ power to veto money bills. It also replaced the Lords’ power of veto over other bills with the power of delay and reduced from seven to five years the maximum length of a parliamentary term. The Lords, threatened with an influx of new Liberal peers, passed the bill into law in August 1911 (131-114). It was implied that further Lords reform would follow but the First World War intervened and the issue fell from the agenda.

Taking up the mantle from the then much-diminished Liberals, the Labour Party took on the Lords in the late 1940s over their nationalisation plans.  Seeking to protect its plans to nationalise the iron and steel industries, Labour sought to reduce the Lords’ power of delay from two years to one. The controversy ran for several years and Labour’s Parliament Bill of 1947 was finally passed into law in December 1949, forced through under the provisions of the 1911 Act. 

The Salisbury Convention dates to this moment, that is, the idea that the Lords should not block legislation for which the government has a mandate by virtue of having won the most recent election. 

The 1949 legislation has been used on only four occasions: The War Crimes Act 1991; the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999; the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000; the Hunting Act 2004.