the Lords lost its right to reject legislation under the Par-
liament Act 1911, which was only passed by the Lords
because of a threat by the King to create sufficient new
peers to secure the passage of the Bill. This crisis had
been precipitated by the refusal of the Lords to pass David
Lloyd-George’s ‘people’s budget’ of 1909. The 1911 Act
removed the Lords’ right to veto legislation, except in
relation to prolonging the life of Parliament, and intro-
duced a power to delay a Bill by up to two years. The
Parliament Act 1949 reduced the Lords’ delaying powers
to one year. Since 1949 four Acts have become law with-
out the consent of the Lords:
■War Crimes Act 1991
■European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999
■Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000
■Hunting Act 2004.
The validity of the Hunting Act 2004 was reviewed by
the House of Lords in the following case.
but allows other bodies or people to draw up the detailed
rules necessary. Rules made in this way are known as
delegated legislation. The main forms of delegated legis-
lation are as follows:
1 Orders in Council.These are rules made under the
authority of an Act by the Queen acting on the advice of
the Privy Council (an honorary body descended from the
old Curia Regis). In practice, the power to make orders
is exercised by the Cabinet, whose members are all privy
councillors. The Queen’s assent is a pure formality.
2 Rules and regulations.These are made by a minister
in respect of the area of government for which he is
responsible, e.g. the power of the Secretary of State for
Social Security to make detailed regulations about the
income support scheme. (Most orders, rules and regula-
tions are collectively referred to as statutory instruments.)
3 Byelaws.These are made by local authorities and cer-
tain other public and nationalised bodies to regulate
their spheres of activity. This form of delegated legisla-
tion requires the consent of the appropriate minister.Legislation and the judiciary
A Bill which successfully passes through the House of
Commons and the House of Lords and has received the
Royal Assent becomes an Act of Parliament. The sov-
ereign law-making powers of the Queen in Parliament
mean that the validity of a statute cannot be questioned
by the courts. Nevertheless, the courts can exercise con-
siderable influence over how the enacted law is applied
to practical problems. Sooner or later, every Act of Par-
liament will be analysed by the judges in the course of
cases which appear before them. It is the task of the judge
to interpret and construe the words used by Parliament
and thereby ascertain the intention of the legislature.
The rules of interpretation followed by the judges may
be classified according to their origin as either statutory
rules or common law rules.Statutory rules
1 Modern Acts usually contain an interpretation section
which defines certain key words used in that Act, e.g.
s 61(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 contains defini-
tions of words and phrases used throughout the Act.
2 The Interpretation Act 1978 lays down certain basic
rules of interpretation for all Acts, e.g. unless the con-
trary intention is indicated ‘words in the singular shallPart 1Introduction to law
20
R (on the application of Jackson)v
Attorney-General(2005)
The claimants in this case were challenging the validity
of the Hunting Act 2004 which had made it an offence
to hunt a wild mammal with a dog, i.e. foxhunting. The
Hunting Act had been passed without the consent of
the Lords using the Parliament Act 1911 as amended by
the 1949 Act. The claimant’s case revolved around the
validity of the Parliament Act 1949, which had been
passed under the provisions of the 1911 Act. They con-
tended that the 1911 Act could only be amended with the
consent of the Lords. The House of Lords rejected this
argument. Both the Parliament Act 1949 and the Hunt-
ing Act 2004 were valid enactments. The 1949 Act had
not changed the constitutional relationship between the
Commons and Lords, but had simply reduced the Lords’
delaying powers from two years to one year. The polit-
ical realities were that both Houses had accepted that
the 1949 Act was valid and had conducted their busi-
ness on this basis for more than half a century.Delegated legislation
The activities of modern government are so varied, and
the problems it deals with are so complex and technical,
that Parliament does not have sufficient time to deal
personally with every piece of legislation required. This
difficulty is overcome by passing an enabling Act of Par-
liament which sets out the basic structure of the legislation