Part of Finance Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:45 pm on 13 June 2013.
Stephen Williams
Liberal Democrat, Bristol West
12:45,
13 June 2013
I cannot help the hon. Gentleman with his inferiority complex about people from the Rhondda as opposed to the Cynon Valley, but I can do so on the coalition negotiations. The mansion tax has not been introduced by this coalition simply because we could not agree, which is how coalitions work. [ Interruption. ] His party did not offer it and, to deal with the Labour Whip’s sedentary Intervention, it was not at all prepared to move on tuition fees.
What happens when coalitions are formed between two different parties is that we get some of the things we want and they get some of those that they want. In 2015, we might have a slightly more grown-up view of how to conduct politics in a pluralist society after a General Election result in which no party commands a Majority in this House.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
In a general election, each constituency chooses an MP to represent it by process of election. The party who wins the most seats in parliament is in power, with its leader becoming Prime Minister and its Ministers/Shadow Ministers making up the new Cabinet. If no party has a majority, this is known as a hung Parliament. The next general election will take place on or before 3rd June 2010.
An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
