Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Tomassi and I'm going to be working through with you on your Citizenship lesson today.

So if you are all settled, you've got everything you need and you're ready to go, then we'll make a start.

Today's lesson title is what is Parliament and What are its functions.

And this is part of the unit called Should The UK Be Called A Democracy?

Hopefully by the end of the lesson today you'll be able to explain what the UK Parliament is and what it does.

So we have three key words in this lesson today.

Now those key words are Parliament.

This is the institution of government in the UK.

It comprises of three parts, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch.

Its purpose is to debate, make laws, and scrutinize the government.

Then you've got government.

This is the group of people with the authority to govern a country.

In the UK, the government is chosen and led by the Prime Minister, sometimes known as the PM.

Then the final key word is political party.

This is an organized group of people who share similar beliefs and goals about how society should run.

These words will be in bold throughout the lesson.

So if you ever need to, you've got here and you can refer back to them.

So we'll make a start on the first of two learning cycles.

It's what does the UK Parliament do?

So what is the UK Parliament?

Do you know already?

So the UK Parliament is based in Westminster, London and it is the legislative branch in the UK responsible for making laws.

When we say legislative, that's because we have three main branches in the UK.

So we've got the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary.

Parliament is part of the legislative branch because they were responsible for making the laws.

And this is the Parliament building looks like.

Have you ever been there before?

Have you seen inside and see what they do?

What do you think might be involved or what goes on inside that building?

It is made up of three parts.

Do you already know what they are?

The first one, to give you a bit of clue and see if you're on the right lines, is the House of Commons.

Now then can you think what the next one is?

It's another house.

It's the House of Lords.

Well done if you managed to get it.

And the third one is the Monarchy.

So these are the three parts that make up the legislative branch.

If we talk about the House of Commons first, so here is inside the House of Commons and there are 650 MPs as they're members of Parliament and they are voted in by the citizens in the UK.

They are there to represent people from different constituencies.

So each MP represents a constituency which is an area of the UK and they create laws and they just make discussions and debates and vote on local, national, and international issues.

Now to look at some different parts of the House of Commons.

So really it's separated into two main sides.

We're going to have a look at one side, which is the house for those in government.

Can you remember what government means from the keywords?

So that is the group that has the authority to make decisions for the country.

So there they sit on that side there and that is those in government.

The government is made up of the Prime Minister.

That's the leader and they're responsible for the policies and decisions of the government, and government ministers.

Now if you have a look in that picture there, if you have a look along the front row, they are the front benchers and they are all government ministers.

So they might be, you know, ministers.

So like you have a Minister of Defense, the Minister of Health, and they all have a different role and they would sit at the front bench during debates in House of Commons.

Then we have the seats behind.

Now these are for back benches so they're not actually part of the government, but they would be members of the governing party.

So do you remember the government is made up of members of the political party that won the most in an election.

So currently in 2025, that is Labor.

Now so on these back benches will be Labor MPs but they are not part of the government 'cause they don't have a specific role.

As we are saying, the government issues usually formed by the political party that wins the majority of seats in the General Election and there are 650 winning political parties.

So at least 326 of those seats will be from that winning party because they have to win the majority of votes.

Now Izzy says, "How has the government formed if a political party does not get a majority?

" And this is a good point because there'll be some elections where a political party does not win more than 326 votes.

So if there isn't a majority, a coalition government can be formed.

Now that means that two or more political parties might work together and form a coalition.

So one maybe had 300 votes and maybe another had 30.

They could come together and that would mean they had enough votes to win and control the majority of seats.

To give you an example, we've got here the different parties.

In this case 'cause you've got 100 seats, you would need more than 50 seats to win.

So no party has a majority here, but if party A and party C came together that would give them 56 seats.

So they would then be able to form the coalition government.

They would agree to bring their ideas together, form their coalition, and then they form part of the government.

So check for understanding now, 'cause there's some tricky concepts in that.

If a majority is not formed, then a government might happen.

This is when or more political parties join together to create a majority and form a government.

Fill in the blanks.

Did you manage to get it?

So it's the coalition government and then it's two or more political parties.

Now we are going to have a look at the other side.

So if we think what happens if you are having a debate, who tends to sit on the other side?

Now this is what we call the opposition.

So this is side, it's for the opposition party and the smaller political parties.

So think about the people that maybe want to challenge or they might want to question what the government is asking and saying, they would sit on this side.

It's organized in the same way as the government but for the opposite side.

So instead of having a prime minister, they still have a leader and they're called the leader of the opposition.

You then have front ventures as well.

So each one, so like we have the Minister of Health, you would have somebody that's in the opposition or in the shadows and they are shadowing that role as well ready to question and challenge and scrutinize what the government is suggesting.

You then also have the back benchers who are those that without a specific role but they're still members of Parliament.

And as we were saying, they're there to scrutinize and hold the government to account for their decisions.

True or false?

The opposition is part of the government.

That's false.

Why is it false?

What's the opposition part of?

They are made up of the political parties that are not government.

Their role is to scrutinize, challenge, and hold the government accountable.

Some other roles that we have in the House of Commons includes the speaker.

Now any ideas where the speaker might sit?

So if I said to you the speaker leads the debates in the House of Commons and they represent the house on ceremonial occasions.

So if you are looking at the person in that picture who might be leading the vote, any ideas which one it is?

It is this one here, so that is the speaker and as we said, they are leading and chairing the debates.

They are assisted by three deputy speakers and they have to remain politically neutral.

Can you think why?

So when we say politically neutral, it means they're not affiliated with a political party because if they're there chairing the debate and we've got different ideas on each side, if they weren't, then they could start to favor some of those ideas.

So they have to remain politically neutral.

Now as of April, 2025, Sir Lindsey Hoyle is the speaker of the house and has been since 2019.

Check for understanding, can you fill in the name of each section?

Did you manage to get it?

So we've got the government there on the bottom left, then you've got opposition, and then the speaker is the one in the middle.

Well done if you managed to get that.

Now we are going to move on to the House of Lords.

Do you know what the House of Lords does?

Have you got any ideas already?

So they are independent from the House of Commons.

They're a separate chamber and they are unelected.

So instead, it is an appointed chamber and it means it composed of various types of peers, including those who are appointed for their expertise.

Hereditary, so that means their title's passed down in generations and members of the Church of England.

So there are different ways of becoming a member of the Lords.

Now the House of Lords has three main roles.

They are to make the laws, they investigate the policies often by things called select committees and they hold the government to account.

So once again, they are there to question what comes through from the House of Commons and go, "Okay, right.

Do we need to make amendments?

Is this okay?

" And then they will go back with their suggestion.

They are there to review and debate the laws like we were saying.

And one thing that is important to note from that is they can suggest changes or delays to laws up to a year.

They cannot block them forever so they can just delay it up to a year if necessary.

Another role is this picture here.

Do you know who this is and the role that they play?

This is the Black Rod.

Now they're responsible for maintaining order during proceeds and ensuring the rules are followed in the House of Lords.

They do have a ceremonial role as well.

So what you can see there is that image and that's the state opening of Parliament where they summon the MPs to the House of Lords.

Next we have a role that occurs in both the houses.

And this is the whips.

What the whips do is they're there to ensure that the political party vote in line with party policies.

And this mainly happens during really important votes.

So if maybe there's an idea that the political party strongly standby or there's something that they want to get through, then they might make sure the whips are there to try and make sure their party members all vote in the way that they would like them to.

Why do they do this?

Because it helps the party to stay united on decisions in Parliament.

Three-line whips are often applied to significant votes.

So MPs of Lords are expected to vote in line with their party policy or they could face disciplinary action.

To give you an example, in 2024, seven Labor MPs were temporarily suspended from the party and that meant they had to sit as independence for voting against the whip on a vote regarding ending the two trial benefit cap.

This shows you the type of disciplinary action that can occur.

So do both chambers have equal power and responsibility?

We did briefly mention this.

So the House of Commons holds more legislative power and is the main decision making body in Parliament.

Can you think why when we mentioned something about the House of Lords?

So remember what we said, that they can only delay.

They can't block forever.

So this means the House of Commons holds that more legislative power to push them laws through.

The House of Lords though is there to serve as a revising chamber.

It provides scrutiny and it's suggesting amendments to legislation.

And this is like what we're saying in terms of the blocking.

The House of Lords can propose the changes.

It does not have the same power to make the final decision.

It is the House of Commons that ultimately passes the law.

And then that leads us on to the third part of Parliament and their role, that's the Monarchy.

So they have a very ceremonial role in Parliament.

So you might, if you've ever seen the state opening of Parliament on the TV or you've watched it, they're there to deliver the Monarch speech and they set the government's agenda.

But that's pretty much it and they take a back seat.

In terms of the day-to-day running, their role is through the Royal Assent.

Now this is signing of the bill by the Monarch which turns that bill into an act, which is then what the law and legislation is.

Their role is mainly to sign off and make it official.

Check for understanding now.

Whose role is it?

Tick the correct response.

So you've got there referred to as revising chamber, holding the government to account and signing the Royal Assent.

Is it the House of Commons, House of Lords, or the Monarch?

How did you get on?

So it's the House of Commons that holds the government to account.

The House of Lords has two roles there.

So they're revising chamber and they still hold the government to account and it is the Monarch's responsibility of signing the Royal Assent.

That moves us onto the first task for today.

Can you compare two key differences between the House of Commons and the House of Lords?

Once you're ready, unpause and we can go through the feedback together.

How did you get on?

Your answer could look like this, One key difference is in how members get their positions.

The House of Commons is made up of elected members of Parliament, MPs, whilst the House of Lords is not elected and members are either appointed, bishops, or hereditary peers.

Another key difference is their role in lawmaking.

The House of Commons have the final say on most legislation, whereas the House of Lords can suggest amendments but cannot ultimately block laws passed by the House of Commons.

Hopefully you managed to recognize some differences and were able to explain them in that kind of style.

Now we're going to move on to the second learning cycle, which is how does Parliament help our democracy function?

We'll go over what is democracy.

So the concept has evolved over time and looks different across the world.

What is a democracy?

Do you know?

So it's this idea of having the rule by the people and people being involved in decision making that happens in the country.

So six key features you'd expect to observe in a democracy are.

Any ideas?

What do we think we want to see?

Free and fair elections, multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, and separation of powers.

If we are thinking about these things here, what do we think the UK Parliament does to help democracy to function?

Any ideas?

Now Parliament plays a crucial role in democracy by representing the people, making and passing laws, and holding the government accountable for scrutiny and debate.

Some of the ways it does this is through things like the use of political parties.

So we saw there the multi-party system.

That links to political parties.

all-party parliamentary groups, select committees, and debates and questioning.

We're going to have a look at some of these to find out how they truly support the democracy and help its function.

So we'll make a start with political parties.

We mentioned them briefly earlier when we looked at the House of Commons and the two different sides in the commons.

Political parties all share different ideas and they help democracy to function by ensuring a wide range of views are represented.

Traditionally, they've been said to be either left, right, or center if you've heard of that.

So some might say, you know, maybe a party's more left wing or right wing.

This is what they're on about and it's a political spectrum.

So just to summarize it, when people talk about that traditional spectrum, it's roughly like this, So to the left, you've got more the Green Party, Labor, Lib Dems in the center, then to Conservatives, and then to Reform UK, so it's a slide in scale.

Now, Jen says here, "What's the difference between the left and right side of the political spectrum?

" So the left side tends to favor more government involvement in people's lives to promote equality.

So things like addressing poverty, whereas the right side tends to favor less government involvement.

This is focusing more on individual freedom.

So like personal responsibility, traditional values, these are very broad concepts.

It's just to kind of give you a bit of an idea, but you will find that there's a lot of crossover and it's not always exactly in this way.

So check for understanding.

Can you fill in the blanks with the missing political party?

Did you manage to get them in the right order?

So Labor Party there, Lib Dems more in the center, and then Conservatives over more to the right hand side.

So in 2024, just to give you an idea of what some of these manifestos might look like, what some of these party ideas might be.

The major political parties had different ideas about education.

So we're going to stick with just the two major ones that Labor leaning over a little bit more to the left and Conservative a bit more to the right.

So the Conservatives proposed for schools to ban mobile phones during school hours to support giving every child the chance to go to a great school, whereas the Labor Party focused on removing VAT and business rate exemptions for private schools to use the funds to enhance state education and provide free breakfast clubs to all primary schools.

Then the same in terms of crime.

So the Conservative Party wanted additional 8,000 police officers to expand police powers to seize weapons and track down stolen property.

Whereas the Labor Party focused more on visible neighborhood policing tackling antisocial behavior and banning the sale of certain knives, things like machetes and zombie knives.

And then if we have a look at the economy and the differences there, you had the Conservative Party proposed cutting tax for workers by reducing national insurance from 12% to 6% by April 2027 and cutting tax for pensioners.

Whereas the Labor Party focused on ending the non-dom tax status.

So that's like people who live in the UK have to pay their UK taxes on all the money they'll earn even if it's earned in other countries rather than just their money that they earn in the UK.

So check for understanding, do these policies belong in the 2024 manifestos of the Labor Party or Conservative Party?

So you've got banning the use of mobile phones in schools, banning the sales certain weapons such as zombie knives and cutting national insurance contributions for workers.

So how did you get on?

The first one was Conservative.

The second one was Labor and the third one was Conservative.

Now hopefully that shows you a little bit of how different parties have different manifestos and ideas, which will sit differently along that political spectrum.

Jun says here, "Are there lots of political parties represented in the House of Commons?

" Now having a variety of parties means the government is held accountable for a range of views and it allows the government to be scrutinized, have debates and questions from a wider perspective.

So as of July 2024, so following the General Election, there are 12 different political parties with seats in the House of Commons, and there are also seven independent members of Parliament who do not belong to a political party.

So if you think about there, so you've got the 12 different party ideas and you've also got seven members who are independent and have their own ideas as well.

So you are getting a different range of views in the House of Commons.

Now earlier, we mentioned coalition governments.

Now when we think about political parties, actually coalition governments help with democracy because they bring together political parties that have different ideas.

They'll have to debate, compromise, and agree what policies they'd like to implement.

So in terms of helping democracy function, this could be a good thing because there has to be some different ideas and viewpoints in the government.

However, it can also lead to conflict.

So to give you an example, during the 2010 to 2015, the UK had a coalition government and it was formed of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Now the Conservative Party, one thing that they wanted to do was to increase tuition fees for universities.

However, the Liberal Democrats did not want 'em to increase.

Now what ended up happening was that the Liberal Democrats had to compromise, and this resulted in tuition fees rising to 9,000 pound a year and it led to a loss of trust in some voters because they felt that the party had gone against their promise and what they were trying to pledge in their manifesto leading up to the election.

This shows you the other side where it could be great to have these different ideas, you can have the conflict as well and then that can impact democracy in the UK.

That was one way.

Now we're going to think about some more ways.

Can you remember how does Parliament help our democracy to function?

There were some other ideas as well.

So the next one we're going to look at is all-party parliamentary groups.

Now these help democracy to function by providing a platform for the members of Parliament and members of the House of Lords to work together on specific issues.

This is things like climate change, education, mental health.

There are loads of different types of all-party parliamentary groups.

What they aim to do is they are informal and they have no official status.

They're run by and four members of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

And what they're trying to do is provide a wide range of voices.

So they'll hear from experts on the issue.

So if they're looking at climate change, they're going to find the climate change experts.

Interest groups of people that are interested in climate change, for example.

And members of the public they'll go to as well and ask them for their views.

Now they can engage with MPs and peers on important issues and ensure an informed debate and help to influence policy decisions that reflect the needs and concerns of citizen society.

So by doing this, it means those MPs and those members from the Lords are going back to their chambers, the debates that they're getting involved in are more informed and they're finding out what the citizens and society really want.

So to give you an example, in 2025, there's an APPG on political and media literacy.

Now what they're looking at is current provision of citizenship, political, and media literacy education and ways to improve it.

Now what they've done is they've gone to different people to ask for evidence and to find out more information.

So they've asked children and young people, parents and carers, teachers, and loads of different other groups.

Now the reason they do this is because they're getting that wide range of experiences to provide some strategies and policies that support young people to play an informed and active role in society and democracy.

And this is an important one to know actually, because children and young people can actually get involved and make a difference in those strategies and policies that are being suggested.

We're going to move on to the final task.

So Jun says, "I don't understand how Parliament can help our democracy to function.

" Can you explain to Jun two different ways that Parliament can help our democracy to function?

Include examples within your explanation.

Once you think you've got it, unpause and we can go through the feedback.

Now your answer could have looked like this, so political parties play a key role in Parliament by representing the views and needs of the people who vote for 'em.

Each party has its own set of policies that reflect what they believe is best for the country.

For example, in the 2024 General Election, the Conservative Party focused on reducing crime and increasing police funding, while the Labor Party proposed improving state education.

This gives voters a choice in who they want to represent them and ensures that the government is accountable to people through their elected MPs.

By having multiple political parties in Parliament, democracy has strengthened because citizens can choose leaders who reflect their values.

Another way that Parliament can help our democracy is through the use of all-party parliamentary groups.

This is because these are informal groups made up of MPs and Lords from different political parties who come together to discuss specific issues such as mental health or education.

These promote discussions and ensure different perspectives are heard.

It might even involve expert charities or citizens in these discussions that can help provide evidence about these issues and help to ensure they are better addressed.

For example, the APPG on education and love of learning ask for evidence from children and young people themselves.

This opens dialogue and colLaboration helps to ensure policies are informed and inclusive.

Hopefully you've managed to find two different ways that Parliament can help democracy to function.

Now that brings us to the summary of today's lesson.

So we've looked at today that UK Parliament is made up of three parts, the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the Monarchy.

The House of Commons holds more legislative power and the House of Lords is seen as the revising chamber.

The UK Parliament supports democracy by having a wide range of political parties that each have different views on how the country should run.

This ensures a wide range of views are represented.

Another way is through all-party parliamentary groups that offer a range of viewpoint and voices.

Thank you for working through with me today and hopefully you have a better understanding of how Parliament helps democracy to function.

Enjoy the rest of your day.