The House of Commons is the name of the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada and historically was the name of the lower houses of Ireland, Northern Ireland and North Carolina. Roughly equivalent bodies in other countries which were once British colonies include the United States House of Representatives, the Australian House of Representatives, and the New Zealand House of Representatives.
In the UK and Canada, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the upper house of parliament (the House of Lords and the Senate, respectively). The leader of the majority party in the House of Commons usually becomes the prime minister. Since 2010, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has had 650 elected members. The House of Commons of Canada has 308 members. The Commons' functions are to consider through debate new laws and changes to existing ones, authorise taxes, and provide scrutiny of the policy and expenditure of the Government. It has the power to give a Government a vote of no confidence.
Read more about House Of Commons: History and Naming, Specific Bodies
Famous quotes containing the words House Of Commons, house of, house and/or commons:
“You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it—low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion—and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Do not forsake your friend or the friend of your parent; do not go to the house of your kindred in the day of your calamity. Better is a neighbor who is nearby than kindred who are far away.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 27:10.
“A country without bordels is like a house without bathrooms.”
—Marlene Dietrich (1904–1992)
“I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons & Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)