The House of Commons is directly elected by the people on the basis of single member constituencies.
The House of Lords consists of a mixture of hereditary peers, life peers, bishops and law Lords.
The last two categories are the Church of England bishops who by law are given automatic representation as leaders of the country’s official established church and senior justices who have traditionally been given seats in the Lords so that when necessary hear cases brought to the Lord as the final court of appeal.
The Role and Function of Legislature.
The legislature is responsible under the constitution for making policy, it is sovereign.
In the theory, parliament decides what policies to follow and then passes legislation allowing those policies to follow and then passes legislation allowing those policies to be put into effect.
The Executive:
Composition:
The Executive comprises of:
The Prime Minister together with all the other ministers both senior and junior.
The civil service and all other arms of these bodies which put parliamentary policy into force or which oversee the progress of Government activities.
The Role and Function of Executive:
The prime minister presides over the Cabinet and selects the other Cabinet members who join him to form the government that is part of the functioning executive. Acting through the Cabinet and in the name of the monarch, the prime minister exercises all of the theoretical powers of the Crown, including making appointments
The prime minister serves as the first lord of the treasury and as minister for the civil service. In addition to the various secretaries of state, the Cabinet includes non-departmental ministers who hold traditional offices, such as the lord president of the council, the paymaster general, and the lord privy seal and ministers without portfolio
The Judiciary:
The composition
The judiciary comprises of:
The Home Secretary, The Lord Chancellor , the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and for Scotland, the Attorney-General and the Solicitor General and the Prime Minister who recommends judicial appointments to the Monarch.
The Role and Function
The Home office: deals with, the metropolitan police directly and the police in the provinces indirectly. They also deal with the prison service, public morals, race relation and with the introduction of criminal law
The Lord Chancellor: deals with the administration of the courts and the appointment of judges and magistrates.
The Law Officers Department: consists of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, both who are the members of Parliament, act as legal advisers to the Crown and the government.