The UK Parliament comprises three elements

• The Monarch
• The House of Lords
• The House of Commons
  

1. The Monarch is a hereditary post descending through the line of the Electoress Sofia of Hanover.
The only qualification is that the sovereign must not be a catholic. The current royal house is the house of Windsor. The Monarch should be over 18 and should also reside in the United Kingdom. An under-age person would still become Monarch, but the decisions might be taken by a senior advisor, designated Regent.
Although the current Royal house claims some descent from ancient Welsh royalty, the claims are tenuous in the extreme. The last royal house to be significantly of Welsh descent was that of Tudor, Henry VII - Elizabeth I.
All executive power is derived the royal prerogative, and in actuality is exercised by ministers and the Prime Minister. The Monarch has the right to be consulted, the right to advise and the right to warn. Under some very restricted circumstances the Monarch could exercise power on their own right. For example, following a general election which returned a minority government, if that government lost a vote of no confidence and then asked the Monarch for a dissolution when a viable alternative government exists, the Monarch could legitimately refuse the dissolution. Another example might be that the Monarch could refuse the Royal Assent to a Bill that fundamentally altered the constitutional arrangements for the UK when the government has no electoral mandate for such a proposal. Not all constitutionalist agree that these examples are valid.
Under normal circumstances it would be fair to say that the monarch has no personal power and could properly be described as a constitutional ornament.
There are few ties between the institution of the Monarchy and Wales. The royal family maintains no private home or official residences in Wales. The most obvious linkage between Wales and the monarchy is the title of "Prince of Wales". This is conferred on the eldest son of the monarch, and carries no additional powers or responsibilities.

2. The House of Lords comprises around 800 hereditary peers, 11 Law Lords (senior judges), around 350 life peers and the Archbishops of Canterbury & York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester and the 21 longest serving Bishops of the Church of England.
The ecclesiastical lords are known as the Lords Spiritual and the others as The Lords Temporal.
Individual Welsh men and women have been appointed to the Lords - the creation of someone as a peer is in the gift of the Prime Minister, but formally carried out by the Monarch.
The Church of England is represented in the House of Lords through the Lords Spiritual. No Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish church, denomination or other faith has ex-officio representation, although the practice has grown up in the last 10 years of creating the Chief Rabbi a life peer.

3. The House of Commons has 659 members elected from single member constituencies by the first past the post electoral system. There are 40 MPs representing Welsh constituencies. The party affiliations of the 40 Welsh MPs are as follows,

2 Liberal Democrat
4 Plaid Cymru (including one MP who was originally elected on a joint PC/Green party ticket)
0 Conservative
34 Labour

On a strictly proportional basis Wales is over-represented, geography would make it difficult to reduce the number of seats in some areas drastically, and the formula used to asses whether a county should have more seats tends to gradually push up the number of Welsh MPs. If Wales was represented on a strictly proportional basis then there would probably be between 32 and 33 MPs from Wales.

WELSH AFFAIRS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

• Welsh Question Time
• Welsh Day Debates
• The Select Committee for Welsh Affairs
• The Welsh Grand Committee
• Welsh Bills Procedure

Although the UK is a unitary state and Wales shares the same legal system as England some recognition of the differences between England and Wales are made in the House of Commons and in the Government. The most obvious of these is the office of the Secretary of State for Wales. Others also exist.

Welsh Question Time
All government departments are subject to a question time in the House of Commons, the Welsh Office questions are held in rotation with the other ministries. In practice this means Welsh questions are held roughly six weekly when the house is sitting.
All MPs (not just Welsh MPs) are able to place questions on the order paper. The Questions are called on a first come first served basis, the questions have to relate to the competence of the Welsh Office, no open questions are permitted. Any question not reached on the floor of the House is replied to in writing.
Question time is a valuable way for opposition and back bench government members to hold the department accountable and to gather information that the government would not necessarily otherwise release.
Under the previous Conservative Government the government whips (business managers) tended to encourage Tories representing English constituencies to place questions (due to the shortage of Conservative members representing Welsh constituencies), so that conservative perspectives could be heard. Today with no Conservative MPs in Wales only Conservatives representing English seats can ask Welsh Ministers questions. Also it should not be forgotten that Welsh MPs can (and do) question English Ministers on matters that solely relate to England.
Click here to go to Welsh Affairs in the House of Commons index

Welsh Day Debates
Each year a debate is held on Welsh affairs. This is a wide ranging debate on all issues of interest to Wales, it rarely gets any coverage in the UK media. It is usually held on or near to St David's Day (1st March). Again any MP can take part and the shortage of Tory MPs for Welsh constituencies results in the "importation" of Conservatives from English seats to take part.
The opposition parties are allocated a total of 16 days in which they can initiate debates. Some of these may be on Welsh Affairs.
When in opposition the Labour party was given 13 of these days and the Liberal Democrats 3. In turn the Liberal Democrats give one of their days to be shared between Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party. This half day a year is used by Plaid Cymru to debate an issue of interest to themselves - and can be expected to be on an subject related to Wales. As yet we don't know of the new post election arrangements
In addition members take part in a ballot to secure an adjournment debate on the subject of their choice. These debates take place on a technical motion to adjourn the house, they usually take place in at the end of a session and are attended by the relevant minister and a handful of members. They rarely receive any coverage in the media - unless the subject is topical. Welsh members may use the time (if they are successful) to raise a matter relevant to Wales - but adjournment debates are more commonly about some issue affecting specifically their constituency.
click here to go to Welsh Affairs in the House of Commons index

The Select Committee for Welsh Affairs
This is a much more substantive institution. As part of the Thatcher reforms of Government introduced in the early 1980's each government department was "shadowed" by a select committee. These committees have powers to call for papers and people and to question individuals. They attempt to work in a cross party way and have proved to be a powerful check on government.
The membership of the committees reflects the party balance of the House of Commons (i.e. all committees have a majority of government party members - with the exception of the recently established Northern Ireland committee) and the committee chairs are shared between government and opposition.
Prior to the last general election the Welsh Affairs Select Committee was chaired by a Labour MP and had four Labour members (including the chair), one Plaid Cymru member and six Conservatives. It is now made up as follows:

Mr Martyn Jones MP (Chairman) Lab Clwyd South
Mr John Bercow MP Con Buckingham
Mr Martin Caton MP Lab Gower
Paul Flynn MP Lab Newport West
Mr Ieuan Wyn Jones MP PC Ynys Mon
Ms Jackie Lawrence MP Lab Preseli Pembrokeshire
Mr Richard Livsey MP Lib Dem Brecon and Radnorshire
Ms Julie Morgan MP Lab Cardiff North
Mr Owen Paterson MP Con Shropshire North
Mr Gareth Thomas MP Lab Clwyd West
Mrs Betty Williams MP Lab Conwy

The Welsh Grand Committee
This committee consists of all Welsh MPs together with up to five other MPs to make the committee more representative of the House of Commons as a whole (which under the previous Tory government in practice meant adding the Secretary of State for Wales, a government whip and three backbench English Tories), but following the General Election the Conservatives were excluded from the Welsh Grand Committee (there is a dispute between the government and the opposition as to exactly why this happened).
The announcement of the creation of the Welsh Grand Committee during the annual St David's day debate in 1960 was seen as going some way to meeting the aspirations of Wales for some degree of legislative autonomy. However its powers are very circumscribed and it meets on only 2 - 4 occasions annually.

It has two main areas of competence.

a. It may debate the principle of a Welsh Bill prior to its Second Reading; following such a debate the Committee reports to the House its view on whether or not the Bill ought to be given a Second Reading. It has no power to reject or amend a Bill.

b. It may debate a "Matter" referred to it by the House, i.e.. a subject of general or specific interest in Wales. These debates end with a vote on reporting back to the house, the committee has no real powers and acts only as a debating forum.

With the demand for some form of devolution growing in Wales the Conservatives had proposed extending the role of the Welsh Grand Committee. One innovation has been to hold one or two meetings a year in Wales - alternating between South and North Wales. It may also be given some powers to hold a bi-monthly question time session with Welsh Office ministers, and to take debates on the Welsh Office spending plans, but this is yet to happen.

To quote the New Statesman magazine "The Welsh Grand Committee exists because Wales is a nation. It has no power in case Wales acts like a nation".
Click here to go to Welsh Affairs in the House of Commons index

Welsh Bills Procedure
The committee stage of Bills relating exclusively to Wales are heard by a committee of Welsh MPs (and one on which all Welsh MPs can sit). This provision dates back to a standing order of the House of Commons of 1904. The Standing Order covering Welsh Bills was suspended by the last government as they would not be able to command a majority on such a committee, here being only six Welsh Conservative MPs, three of which were ministers.
In practice consideration of the committee stage of Welsh bills (such as the recent Welsh Language Bill and the Local Government Wales Bill) were held in a committee with a majority of Welsh members but with enough MPs representing English constituencies to give the (then) Government a majority. It is too soon to know how the government will proceed with any Welsh bills in the future - the Welsh Assembly Bill as a major constitutional measure will not go through the Welsh bills procedure
Click here to go to Welsh Affairs in the House of Commons index

Copyright Lyn David Thomas 1996

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