UNIT 63

THE BRITISH INSTITUTIONS. THE HOUSE

OF PARLIAMENT. THE GOVERNMENT.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE ELECTORAL
SYSTEM. THE CROWN.

OUTLINE
Preface
An INTRODUCTION to the topic
1. BRITISH INSTITUTIONS
1.1. The Parliament
1.1.1. The House of Commons
1.1.2. The House of Lords
1.2. The Government
1.2.1. The Prime Minister

1.2.2. Central and local government


1.3. British political parties

1.3.1. British electoral system


1.4. The Crown
1.5. The Law
2. DIDACTIC APPROACH
3. CONCLUSION
4. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 “Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper”
Margaret Thatcher

The unit to be analyzed is Unit 63 in the set of topics. The main aim of
Unit 63 is to provide a useful introduction to the British institutions being
these the ones which determine the running of the country from the five different
bodies. We will start off with an introduction in which we will list the main
features of the British country regarding its institutions and politics. Then
we will go straight to the topic and analyse in further detail each of the bodies:
Parliament, Government, Politics, Crown and the Law.
After that we will study how we can approach this in Secondary and
Bachillerato stages and the importance of doing it, and we will explain how the
topic is related to the curriculum and the connections of the topic with other
units in the set and other disciplines of the curriculum proposed by LOMCE fot
both stages. We will end up with an appropriate conclusion and the
bibliographical references consulted in the development of this unit.
All in all, the main aim of Unit 63 is to provide a useful record of the
current reality of the British Institutions and to analyse the implications and
importance of bringing the contents of this unit to the classroom setting.

An introduction to the topic

Britain is a constitutional monarchy. That means that it is a country

governed by a queen who accepts the advice of parliament. It is also a
parliamentary democracy, that is, it is a country whose government is
controlled by a parliament which has been elected by people.
When the media talks about ‘the government’ they usually mean one of
these two things: The term ‘government’ can be used to refer to all the
politicians who have been appointed by the monarch to help run the
government departments or to take on various other special responsibilities.
They are normally about a hundred members in this sense and they are usually
known as ministers and mainly come from the House of Commons. It is rare for
a person from outside the Parliament to become minister, unlike in the USA and
in other countries of Europe.
The other meaning of the term government is more limited. It refers only to
the most powerful of these politicians, namely the Prime Minister and the
members of the Cabinet. In the Cabinet they are usually abot twenty people.
 Partly as a result of the electoral system, Britain, unlike much of western
countries in Europe, normally has a single-party government, that means that
all the members of the members of the government belong to the same party.
Traditionally Britain has regarded coalitions as a bad idea (Morgan K., 1995).
Since the modern political era Britain has got only a few years of coalition
governments.
The habit of single-party government has helped develop the tradition
known as collective responsibility, that is, every member of the government
shares the responsibility for every policy made even if he or she didn’t play any
part making it.

1. BRITISH INSTITUTIONS
The most important British Institutions are the Parliament with its two
houses (Commons and Lords) and the Monarchy. Some other elements are
implied, such as the political parties, the electoral system and the law.
Therefore, all of them will be analysed for a better understanding of the cultural
aspects of life in Great Britain.

1.2. The Parliament

The highest positions in the government are filled by members of the
directly elected parliament. In Britain, as in many European countries, the oficial
head of state, wheter a monarch or a president, has little power.
The activities of Parliament in Britain are making laws, giving authority
to the government to raise and spend money, controlling government
activity and discussing this activity.
The British Parliament works in the Palace of Westminster, which
contains offices, meeting rooms, libraries, restaurants and some places of
residence. It also contains the two large rooms where the House of Lords meets
and where the House of Commons meets, because the British Parliament is
divided into two different houses. The Commons is by far the most important of
them and even only its members are commonly known as ‘Members of the
Parliament’ (MPs).

1.1.1. The House of Commons

It is the most powerful of the two Houses and it is the one which
decides national policy, but the House of Lords can as kit to rewrite certain
parts of a bill before it becomes a new law.
 The House of Commons members are called Members of Parliament,
MPs. Each MP is elected by voters in one constituency (region). There are 651
MPs in the House of Commons (524 for England, 72 for Scotland, 38 for Wales
and 17 for Northern Ireland). In 1994 there were only 59 women MPs, while in
2017 208 women were elected for an MP position (Prince, 2017).
The Speaker is the person who chairs and controls the discussion in the
House and makes sure the rules of procedure are followed. In 1992 a woman
was appointed speaker for the first time, so the MPs had to get used to
addressing not to ‘Mr. Speaker’ but to ‘Madamme Speaker’.
The basic procedure for business in the Commons is a debate on a
particular proposal followed by a resolution which either accepts or rejects
this proposal. Sometimes the resolution only expresses a viewpoint but more
often is a matter of framing a new law or approving or not government plans to
raise taxes or spend money on certain ways.
Occasionally there is no need to vote but there usually is. MPs have to
vote for a or against a particular proposal. They do it by walking through one of
two corridors at the side of the House –one is for the ‘Ayes’ (those who agree)
and the other is for the ‘Noes’ (those who disagree). These resolutions are only
part of its tasks.
Other activity of the House is committees. They are appointed to
examine particular proposal for laws, but there are also permanent commitees
whose job is to investigate the activities of the government.
Sometimes divisions take place along party lines. MPs know they owe
their position to their party, so they nearly always vote the way their party wants.
People in charge of making sure that the MPs do that are called the Whips, and
their job is to inform all MPs how the should vote.

1.1.2. The House of Lords

The 1203 members of the House of Lords are not elected. Some are
life peers. They are usually former members of the House of Commons. There
are also judges or bishops. But the majority (774) are hereditary peers, the
heads of aristocratic families.
The House of Lords has little, if any, power any more, just like the
monarchy. However, all proposals must have the agreement of the Lords before
they become law.
The current House of Lords is a forum for public discussion. Its
members do not depend on party politics and for this reason this House is
sometimes able to bring important matters that the Commons have been
ignoring into the open (O’Driscoll, 1995). More importantly, it is the place
where proposals for new laws are discussed in great detail, uch more detail
than the busy Commons have time for. Most people agree that having two
Houses of Parliament is a good idea, and that this second House could have a
more useful function if it were constitued in a different way (without the
hereditary element).

1.2. The Government

The party with more MPs forms the government. The leader of the
winning party automatically becomes Prime Minister and appoints the
Cabinet.
The members of the Cabinet are the leaing government Ministers.
The Prime Minister is the most important person in the Parliament (Britain
does not have a President). The party which comes second is the Opposition
and it forms its own Shadow Cabinet.
British Prime Minister lives at 10 Downing Street. The Chacellor of the
Exchequer (responsible for money and finance) lives next door at 11 Downing
Street.
Most heads of government departments have the title of ‘Secretary
of State’. The leading politicians in the governing party usually become
Members of the Cabinet.

1.2.1. The Prime Minister

Although it seems that the Queen has a great deal of power, in reality
she has very little. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, appears not to have
much power but in reality he/she has a very great deal. He/she is the head of
government of the United Kingdom and directs both the executive and the
legislative powers. Together with his/her Cabinet (department heads) is
accountable to the Monarch, to Parliament, to his/her political party and,
ultimately, to the electorate for the policies and actions of the executive and the
legislature.
Boris Johnson is the British politician serving as Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom since July 2019. He first became member of the Parliament in
2001, then he served as Mayor of London (from 2008 to 2016) and again he
became MP in 2015. He was a prominent figure in the process of withdrawing
the UK from the European Union (Brexit). When he declined the offer to replace
David Cameron as the leader of the Conservative Party and so becoming the
new Prime Minister, he was named Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under
the government of Theresa May (2016-2019). After Theresa May resigned in
2019, he was elected Conservative leader and appointed Prime Minister.
Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics and jornalism.

1.2.1. Central and local governments

In Britain local governments authorities (generally known councils) only
have powers because the central government has given them powers and have
allowed them to exist. Several times in the 20th century the British government
has abolished local councils and brought new ones into existence.
The system of local governments is very similar to the system of national
government. There are elected representatives, called councillors (the
equivalent of MPs) who meet in a council chamber in the Town Hall (the
equivalent of the Parliament) where they make policies, which are implemented
by local government officers (the equivalent of civil servanst).
Most British people have far more direct with local governments than
they do with national government. Local councils traditionally manage all public
services.
Local councils are allowed to collect one kind of tax and this is the tax
based on property. All the other kinds are collected by the central government.
Most of the numerous services that modern government provides are run
at local level in Britain. These include public hygiene, environmental issues,
health inspection, rubbish collection and the cleaning and tidying of all public
spaces.

1.3. British political parties

Every five years British people over the age of 18 can vote in a general
election. People vote for the candidate they want in their constituency
(region). The candidate who wins becomes the MP in the House of
Commons even if he/she get only one vote more than the second candidate.
This electoral system is called “the first pasts the post”.
The first pasts the post electoral system places the two most powerful
parties in an advantegeous position. Since the 1920s the two main parties have
been the left-wing Labour Party and the right-wing Conservative Party.
Despite the recent changes, such as the televising of Parliament, political
life in Britain is still influenced by the traditionally respect for privacy and love of
secrecy. It is also quite informal, there is a tendency to take important decisions
over drinks or at lunchs, instead of in prearranged, formal or official meetings.
There has been in Britain for years a strong political stability in which
politicians of different parties cooperate as a habit and get on well because
they normally see the practical advantage of cooperation. Thus Britain is
normally described as having a two-party system. This is because since 1945
one of the two big parties, Conservative or Labour, has controlled by itself the
government and members of these big parties have occupied more than 90% of
all the seats in the House of Commons. The same situation existed throughout
the nineteenth century, except the Liberals instead of the Labour Party were
one of these big parties.
Politicians in Britain do not have a good reputation. Even the word
politician, used to describe a person, means that they are criticizing her/him and
suggesting a lack of trustworthiness. People do or hate politicians but they are
regarded as to be frequently dishonest (Vaughan Rees, M. et al., 1995).
Now it is time to describe the main features of the main political parties in
Britain.
Labour Party: The traditional outlook of this party is left of centre, it
stands for equality, for the weaker people in society and for more
government involvement in the economy. It is more concerned to provide full
social services than to keep income taxes low.
The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 20190 under
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The party is the official Opposition in the
Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The voters of the party belong to the working class, plus a small-
middle-class intelligentsia.
Conservative Party: It developed from a group of MPs known as the
Tories and it is still often known by this name.
The traditional outlook of the party is right of centre. It stands for
hierarchical authority and minimal government interference in the
economy. It likes to reduce income tax, gives priority to national defence
and international law and order.
It is commonly and currently the governing party. The party’s leader is
now Boris Johnson, who is serving as Prime Minister. The leader of the party
has relatively great degree of freedom to direct policy.
Its voters belong to the richer section of society, plus a large minority
of the working classes.
 Other important parties in the UK are the Liberal Democrats;
nationalist parties (one from Wales and the other from Scotland), which ask
for more autonomy for their countries in most fields and parties in Northern
Ireland (one represents the Protestant Community and the other the Catholic
Community. There is a third party called the Alliance Party).
There are numerous other small parties, but most of them don’t last
long. Some are left-winged other extreme right-winged parties and there are
also others whivh represents minorities (the Green Party).

1.3.1. British electoral system

Nowadays, of course, nearly everyone votes for a candidate because he
or she belongs to a particular party, but the tradition remains that an MP is first
and foremost a representative of a particular locality. The result of this tradition
is that the electoral system is remarkably simple. It works like this: the country is
divided into areas of roughly equal population (around 90.000), known as
constituencies. Anyone who wants to be an MP must declare him/herself as a
candidate in a constituency. On polling day, voters go to polling stations and are
given a piece of paper (a ballot) with the name of the candidates for that
constituency. Each voter puts a cross next to the name of the candidate they
want.
After the polls have closed, ballots are counted and the candidate with
the larger number of votes is the winner and becomes the MP for that
constituency.
It is the government which decides when to hold an election. The law
says every five years. However, the interval between elections is usually a bit
shorter.
To be a candidate for election, a person must only be at least eighteen
years old and be on the electoral register.
British elections are comparatively quiet. There is no tradition of large
rallies or parades as in the USA. However, the media coverage is rather
noticeable (Vaughan-Rees, M. et al., 1995).
General elections always take place on Thursday and there are no public
holidays to go and vote. Instead, polling stations are open from seven in the
morning until ten at night, so that everyone has the opportunity to vote. Polling
stations are usually schools, so they are the only ones which get a holiday.
1.4 The Crown
Windsor is the family name of the royal family. The position of the
monarch in Britain is a perfect illustration of the contradictory nature of the
constitution. From the evidence of written law only, the Queen has almost
absolute power, and it seems also very undemocratic.
In the English law there is a principle that says that the monarch can do
nothing that is legally wrong, what means that Queen Elisabeth is above the
law. In practice, of course, the reality is very different. In fact, the Queen
cannot choose anyone she likes to be Prime Minister, but she has to choose
someone who has the support of the majority of MPs in the House of
Commons, that is the chamber of the two Houses of Parliament elected by
people. Moreover it is the Prime Minister who decides who the other
government ministers would be, although officially the Prime Minister only
‘advises’ the monarch who to choose. The same happens with the Parliament.
Again, the Prime Minister will talk ober ‘requesting’ a dissolution of Parliament
when he/she wants to hold an election, but it would normally be impossile for
the monarch to refuse this ‘request’. Similarly, it is supposed that the monarch
could refuse a bill passed by the Parliament and so stop becoming law, no
monarch has done it since 1708.
As we can see, in reality the monarch has no power at all. When she
opens Parliament each year she reads out a speech that has been written for
her but not by her at all. If she disagrees with some policies of the government
she might ask the ministers to change the wording in the speech but she cannot
stop the government going ahead with any of its policies.
So, the roles of the monarch according to the opinion of political experts
are these three:
-Personal embodiment of the government of the country.
-Final check on a government becoming dictatorial: if the government
ever managed to pass a bill through Parliament terribly unpopular and bad, the
monarch could refuse it, so it wouldn’t become a law.
-Representing the country.
Nonetheless the monarchy is very popular and it gives British people a
symbol of continuity and national proud.
1.5. The Law
Unlike other countries Britain has no constitution. Of course there are
rules, regulations, principles and procedures for the running of the country,
but there is no single written document which can be appealed to as the highest
law of the land.
Instead, the principles and procedures by which the country is governed
and from which people’s rights are delivered come from different sources that
have been built up bit by bit over the centuries and some of them are written
down in laws agreed by Parliament, other have been spoken and then written
down (judgements by courts) and some have never been written at all.
The system of justice in England and Wales is, in both criminal and
civil cases, as it is in North America, an adversarial system.
There are basically two kind of courts. Morethan 90% of all cases are
dealt with in magistrates’ courts. Every town has one of these. In them a
number of magistrates (usually three) passes judgement, and if they decide
somebody is guilty they also impose punishment. Magistrates are not trained
lawyers but just ordinary people of good reputation chosen by a local commitee.
They don’t get a salary (Morgan, K., 1993).
Serious criminal cases are first hadled in magistrates’ courts but then
they go to a higher court, usually a crown court where a proffesional lawyer
acts as a judge and the final decision is taken by a jury (twelve people). These
people don’t get paid and are obliged to perform this duty. To reach a veredict
ten out of these twelve must agree. If not, the case must start all over again with
a different jury. The judge acts as a referee and of course impose punishment
on those found guilty of crimes.
There are two kind of lawyers in Britain: solicitors and barristers.
Everybody who needs a lawyer has to go to a solicitor. If the case goes to
higher courts they usually hire a barrister.
Scotland has its own legal system. It also uses an adversarial
system of legal procedure. A noticeable feature of the Scottish system is that
there are three possible veredicts on it, not only ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, but also
‘not proven’ that means that the accused person cannot be punished.
2. DIDACTIC APPROACH
We should not forget that the topic of this unit is part of the British
culture. If we bear this fact in mind we should always remember that teaching a
foreign language is not about learning syntactic structures, vocabulary and
expressions but every language learning process should incorporate
cultural elements because they are intertwined with the language itself
(Richards, J. & Rodgers, 2001).
Communication is more than a matter of language proficiency and that,
apart from enhancing and enriching communicative competence, cultural
competence can also lead to empathy and respect toward different cultures.
Culture and communication are inseparable because culture is the
foundation of communication (Council of Europe, 2001).
How can we incorporate culture to language teaching at classroom level?
Well, this unit connects specially with Sociocultural Aspects and
Intercultural Awareness. We can bring this about, for example, by comparing
UK institutions, US institutions and Spanish institutions (Prime Minister vs.
President, Senate & Congress vs. House of the Commons & House of the
Lords, etc.), or even by bringing to the class discussions about hot topics
related (Brexit, monarchy, royal weddings, etc.). These current affairs related to
the topic can also help us work on transversal contents such as Education
for Peace, Equal Rights and Sex Equality. This way we can bring the topic of
this unit to the classroom provoking at the same time the awakening of our
students’ critical point of view towards politics and other hot topics of this
decade as Spanish students are expected to know about the international.
On the other hand, we have the semantic field referred to politics
(terms like: policy, politicians, government, crown, poll, etc.). This is something
easy to approach in a classroom whatever the stage by providing an input (text
or audio) related to the field.
Media and new technologies can provide appropriate contexts to
approach the topic. Through them students will feel involved and motivated to
participate in open discussions about this apparently unattractive topic for
teenagers.
According to LOMCE 8/2013, where the Spanish Education System is
regulated at all levels and Decree 220/2015, where the curriculum for GCSE is
established in this Autonomous Community the content of this unit connects
especially with the legislation in force, LOMCE 8/2013, the organic law on the
improvement of education, RD 1105/2014 the national decree that regulates the
curricula in the Spanish territory for Secondary Education and Decrees
220/2015 and 221/2015 which regulate the curricula for Secondary and
Bachillerato stages in the Autonomous Community of Murcia. It is stated in
Content Blocks No.1, 2, 3 & 4, Understanding Written and Oral Texts and
Producing Oral and Written Texts, that students have to be familiar with
sociocultural values of the foreign language.
The content of this unit deals with Competence in Linguistic
Communication which appears in Order ECD 65/2015 of January 21st, where
the relations among contents, assessment criteria and key competences are
established. It also touches on the Cultural Awareness and Expression because
learning a language is also learning a culture.
The nature of the content of this unit allows us to establish connections
with other areas in the curriculum such as Spanish History and World
History because the historical events taking place in this period had an
influence in Europe and Spain as well. We could also connect it with
Geography and Economy and Ethics.

3. CONCLUSION
Britain is a constitutional monarchy, this means that it has a monarch
with very little power and who reigns and governs with the support of the
Parliament; and also a parlamentary democracy, which means that its
government has been elected by people. These two facts, together with the
separation of powers in five different bodies and the slowly evolution of
each one of the British institutions has meant stability for the country.
After the Second World War they started a period of welfare. The war also
brought the end of the Empire leading Britain towards a growing political and
economic commitment to Europe in the European Economic Community. Now
they have decided to carry on the process of withdrawing the United Kingdom
from the European Union and only the future will reveal the consequences on
the stability of the country and its institutions.
4. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Paper:
The Oxford History of Britain. Morgan, K., Oxford University Press, 
Oxford,
1993.
Britain. O’Driscoll, J. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995.
In Britain. Vaughan-Rees, M. et al., Richmond Publishing, London, 1995.
Approaches and methods in language Teaching. Richards, J., & Rodgers.
Cambridge University Press, 2001
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:
Learning,Teaching and Assessment. Council of Europe. CUP
Theresa May. The enigmatic Prime Minister. Rosa Prince, Biteback Publishing,
2017.

Web pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom