Comparative Powers of the Commons and Lords

The Commons and the Lords perform overlapping functions with sharply unequal powers. One fact explains the whole imbalance: the Commons is elected and the Lords is not.

That asymmetry is written into statute, not merely observed in practice.

Power	House of Commons	House of Lords
Remove a government	Yes, by a vote of no confidence	No
Approve taxation and spending	Yes, and exclusively	One-month delay only
Pass a bill without the other House	Yes, under the Parliament Acts	No
Amend legislation	Yes	Yes
Delay a public bill	Not applicable	Around one year
Veto a bill extending Parliament's life	Yes	Yes — its only absolute veto
Reject secondary legislation	Yes	Yes in law, rarely in practice
Supply the Prime Minister	Yes, by convention	No, not since 1902

Two consequences follow. First, a government with a working Commons majority can pass what it likes in the end, so the Lords' power is a power to slow and shape, not to stop. Second, because no party holds a Lords majority, that slowing power is exercised far more often than the raw constitutional position suggests.

Distinguish legal power from political influence throughout this topic. The Lords' legal powers are weak and well defined. Its political influence varies with the government's majority, its popularity and how much parliamentary time is left in the session.

The specification asks for "the exclusive powers of the House of Commons". There are four, and each traces back to election.

1. Confidence in the government

A government remains in office only while the Commons has confidence in it. Losing a confidence motion obliges the Prime Minister to resign or seek a general election. This is not theoretical: in March 1979 James Callaghan's Labour government lost a confidence motion by 311 votes to 310, and lost the general election that followed. The Lords has no equivalent power — it cannot dismiss a government or force an election.

2. Control of taxation and public spending

No tax can be levied and no money spent without Commons approval. This is the oldest of the exclusive powers, and it is the reason the Budget is delivered in the Commons and voted on there.

3. The right to insist on legislation

Under the Parliament Acts the Commons can pass a bill into law over the Lords' objection. No route runs the other way.

4. Supplying the Prime Minister and most ministers

By convention the Prime Minister sits in the Commons so as to be accountable to elected members. The last Prime Minister to lead from the Lords left office in 1902. Andy Burnham's route into office in July 2026 followed the convention exactly: he won the Makerfield by-election on 18 June 2026 before becoming Labour leader and then Prime Minister on 20 July 2026.

A worked illustration of confidence power in the other direction. After the 2017 general election the Conservatives were short of a majority and entered a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP. The DUP took no government posts but agreed to support the government on confidence motions and money votes. That deal existed solely because those are Commons votes; nothing about the Lords' composition could have supplied the same security.

The Commons' financial dominance rests on a convention hardened into statute by a constitutional crisis.

In 1909 the Lords rejected David Lloyd George's "People's Budget", breaking the convention that the unelected chamber does not obstruct finance. Two general elections were fought in 1910, and the resulting Parliament Act 1911 settled the question by law.

How a money bill now works:

1. A bill dealing solely with taxation, public borrowing or public spending is certified as a money bill by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Speaker's certificate cannot be challenged in the courts.
2. The bill goes to the Lords after passing the Commons.
3. If the Lords has not passed it unamended within one month, it is sent for Royal Assent regardless.

Beyond certified money bills, the Commons also invokes financial privilege more broadly. Where a Lords amendment to an ordinary bill would increase public spending or reduce revenue, the Commons can reject it on that ground alone, and by convention the Lords does not insist.

	Money bill	Ordinary public bill
Lords may amend?	No	Yes
Lords may reject?	No	Yes, once
Maximum Lords delay	One month	Roughly a year, spanning two sessions
Who decides the category	The Speaker's certificate	Not applicable

Do not write that the Lords "cannot discuss" money bills. It can debate one; what it cannot do is amend it, reject it or hold it beyond a month.

The two Parliament Acts are the mechanism behind the Commons' final word.

• Parliament Act 1911. Removed the Lords' veto over money bills. For other public bills, reduced the Lords' power to a delay of three parliamentary sessions spread over about two years. It also cut the maximum life of a Parliament from seven years to five.
• Parliament Act 1949. Cut that to two sessions and one year, so the Lords can now hold up most public bills for roughly a year before the Commons can proceed without it.

Limits on the mechanism. The Acts apply to public bills that begin in the Commons. They do not cover bills that start in the Lords, and they do not cover a bill extending the life of a Parliament beyond five years — the one measure over which the Lords retains an absolute veto, deliberately preserved so that a Commons majority cannot postpone its own re-election.

How often the Acts are used. Seven times since 1911. Three of those came under the original 1911 procedure — including, pointedly, the Parliament Act 1949 itself, which was passed over Lords objections. The four modern uses are:

Act passed under the Parliament Acts	Year	Subject
War Crimes Act	1991	Prosecution of Second World War crimes
European Parliamentary Elections Act	1999	Regional list voting for European elections
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act	2000	Equalising the age of consent
Hunting Act	2004	Ban on hunting wild mammals with dogs

Seven uses in over a century tells you the Acts work mostly as a threat. Peers know that pressing an objection to the point of a showdown will end in defeat, so they usually make their point, extract a concession and give way. The last use was more than two decades ago, in 2004.

Weak on paper, the Lords is not powerless. Four powers matter.

1. Amendment

Peers propose changes to bills line by line and vote them into the text. The government must then persuade the Commons to strike them out. Most Lords influence is exercised here rather than through outright rejection.

2. Delay

Around a year's delay under the Parliament Act 1949 is a real weapon late in a parliamentary session, because a bill that runs out of time falls. When Kim Leadbeater's assisted dying private member's bill moved slowly through the Lords in late 2025, she warned publicly in December 2025 that it might run out of time — delay threatening to operate as an effective, if unintended, veto.

3. Ping-pong

A bill returns to the Lords each time the Commons overturns its amendments. Peers can send an amendment back repeatedly, and each round costs the government time it may not have.

4. A veto over secondary legislation

Statutory instruments are not covered by the Parliament Acts, so in law the Lords can reject one outright. It seldom does, because doing so is seen as constitutionally aggressive.

Worked case study — tax credits, October 2015. George Osborne proposed cuts to tax credits through a statutory instrument rather than a bill, which meant the measure could not be amended and would ordinarily pass with little scrutiny. On 26 October 2015 peers declined to kill the instrument outright but voted to withhold approval until transitional protection was in place for those losing money. The Chancellor abandoned the cuts in his Autumn Statement weeks later, and the government commissioned the Strathclyde Review into the Lords' powers over secondary legislation.

What it shows: the Lords using its least-used power to defeat a flagship government policy — and the government's immediate response being to question whether the Lords should hold that power at all.

The third bullet of 2.2 asks for the debate itself. Structure it as two contested propositions.

Proposition one: the Lords is over-reaching. In December 2025 the Labour MP who introduced the assisted dying bill criticised the "very slow" progress of legislation the Commons had already passed. Former ministers Justin Madders and Dame Nia Griffith, writing with select committee chair Debbie Abrahams, argued that an unelected chamber can be tolerated in a democracy only while it accepts that the elected House has the last word on what becomes law. On this reading, a chamber with no voters that blocks a chamber with voters has a legitimacy problem however good its amendments are.

Proposition two: the Lords is doing its constitutional job. The crossbench peer and economist Professor Alison Wolf argued in December 2025 that modern government bills are long and often poorly drafted, that the Commons has largely stopped scrutinising legislation in detail, and that slow passage is the predictable result of careful scrutiny rather than obstruction. On this reading the Lords compensates for a weakness in the Commons.

The evidence cuts both ways, and the best answers pair the examples rather than listing them.

Evidence the Lords is powerful	Evidence the Commons still wins
January 2026: peers defeated the government by voting for a ban on social media use by under-16s	The government had already announced a consultation on the issue, so the Lords was pushing at an open door
The Lords amended the Rwanda bill repeatedly through 2024	Rishi Sunak used his Commons majority to reverse the amendments and the bill became law in April 2024
Peers held up the assisted dying bill for months from June 2025	Delay was possible only because it was a private member's bill with no government time behind it
No party has a Lords majority; crossbenchers were around 22% of the House in March 2026	In December 2025 the Lords dropped its amendments to Labour's employment rights bill under the Salisbury Convention
The Lords can reject statutory instruments outright	It uses that power so rarely that even in 2015 peers stopped short of outright rejection

A defensible judgement. The Commons is clearly the more powerful chamber, because it alone can remove a government, control money and legislate without the other House. The Lords' influence is real but conditional: it is strongest when the government's majority is thin, when the session is running out, when public opinion is already moving the same way, and when a measure was not in the winning manifesto. Say which of those conditions is doing the most work in the example you choose.

1. Saying the Lords "can block legislation"

It can delay for about a year and amend without limit. Only a bill extending the life of a Parliament can be blocked outright. Using "block" loosely turns a precise AO1 point into a mistake.

2. Overstating the Parliament Acts

Seven uses since 1911 and none since 2004. Their significance is as a credible threat that shapes negotiation, not as a routine tool. Claiming governments "regularly" override the Lords is not supported by the record.

3. Ignoring why the Lords wins the votes it wins

Government defeats in the Lords happen because no party has a majority there, not because peers have strong formal powers. Naming the crossbench bloc — around 22% of the House in March 2026 — explains the mechanism rather than just reporting the outcome.

4. Treating money bills and financial privilege as the same thing

A money bill is a whole bill certified by the Speaker. Financial privilege is a ground on which the Commons rejects individual Lords amendments to ordinary bills. Both restrict the Lords, by different routes.

5. Answering "which chamber is more powerful" with a description

The comparison is settled: the Commons. The marks are in explaining under what conditions the Lords nonetheless gets its way, and in weighing whether that influence is legitimate for an unelected body.

6. Losing the synoptic link

Paper 2 non-source questions expect you to draw on Component 1. Legitimacy, mandate and the democratic deficit are Paper 1 concepts and belong in any answer about an unelected chamber overruling an elected one.