The clerk of the House of Commons is the head of its clerical staff. The sergeant-at arms sees to the maintenance of order within the precincts and to the execution of the orders of the House, and, as housekeeper, looks after its domestic staff and arrangements.
The law of Parliament consists of the rights, usages, practice and regulations of each House. It may be classified, from a Benthamic point of view, as a substantive law of rights and privi leges, and an adjective law of procedure; or, again, as an unwritten customary law to be gathered from precedents and decisions, and an enacted law to be found in orders of the Houses. The substantive law would include the rules which govern the rights of each House, or of the individual members of each House, in their relations to each other, to the Crown; to the executive and judicial authorities of the country, and to individuals and bodies outside Parliament.
The privileges which are formally claimed by the House of Commons through its speaker at the beginning of each Parliament, bulked large in the 17th century controversies between the King and Parliament, and were much in sisted on by the Commons of the 18th century, but in the 20th century have retired into the background. The cases in which a member of Parliament, as such, can claim any exceptional privilege or immunity are now few and rare.
The House of Lords is not only a branch of the legislature but the ultimate Court of Ap peal from the ordinary courts of the United Kingdom. (Appeals from the colonies and de pendencies and ecclesiastical and certain other appeals lie to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council). It performs its judicial func tions exclusively through those of its members who hold or have held high judicial offices. It holds its judicial sittings in the morning, and can sit judicially when the legislature is not sitting. For legislative and general business, its sittings begin at 4.15 in the afternoon and, as a rule, are not of long duration. The cases in which they extend over the dinner hour are exceptional. It does not sit on Wednesday or Saturday.
The House of Commons, when in session, sits from 2.45 to 11 on Monday, Tuesday, Wed nesday and Thursday, and from 12 to 5 on Fri day. It begins with uncontentious private bills and other formal business. Questions to Min isters (which are not put on Fridays), occupy or may occupy the time till 3.45. As soon as
questions have been disposed of, the public business of the day begins. Opposed business is not taken after 11, unless it belongs to a special class, or unless the eleven o'clock rule is suspended.
The business of the House of Commons is three-fold, legislative, financial, critical. It makes laws with the concurrence of the House of Lords and of the Crown. It imposes taxes and appropriates revenue, By means of ques tions and discussions, it criticizes and controls the action of the executive.
While a project of law is before either of the two Houses it is called a bill. When it has received the royal assent it is called an act. A bill may be introduced into either House by a member of that House. When it has been introduced, it is read a first time and is printed by order of the House. The stage of first reading is formal. On the second reading questions of principle are discussed. If the second reading is affirmed, the bill goes to a committee, which, in the House of Commons, is either a committee of the whole House, or one of the standing committees on bills, or a select committee. In the absence of special order it goes, under the existing orders, to a committee of the whole House.
A committee of the whole House is really the House itself sitting in a less formal man ner, presided over by a chairman at the table, the speaker's chair being vacant, and freed from some of the restrictions which attach to proceedings when the speaker is in the chair.
The standing committees on bills, of which there are at present two, are constituted by the committee of selection, and are intended to be microcosms of the whole House. Each of them consists of not less than 60 members, and the quorum of each is 20.
A select committee is appointed by the House, and its members are nominated by the House itself, or, in some cases, either wholly or partially by the committee of selection. The nomination of members by the House is made in pursuance of arrangements between the ((whips)) of the several parties. There may be joint select committees of the two Houses. When a bill has gone to a select committee, it must subsequently pass through a committee of the whole House, but this is not a case with a bill sent to a standing committee.