Take a tour of the House of Lords

so here we are in Central Lobby this is the heart of Parliament and we are equidistant between the commons chamber and the Lord's chamber usually this space is teaming with people it's where any member of the public can come but today we're here to talk about the House of Lords so we're going through to the peers Lobby so here we are in the peers Lobby again this is usually teaming with people they might be members of the public who have come to watch our proceedings and they walk through here to go up to the gallery where they watch what's going on in the chamber but through those Gates is the chamber where of course most of our work is done whether it's questions debates or part of the legislation that is where it all happens the Press reports show how damaging that can be but I shall indeed take all the noble Lords points on board we're right at the heart of the House of Lord the chamber and it's in the chamber that we debate government policy pass laws and generally scrutinize the activities of the whole of what's going on in Britain today and despite the gold leaf the carved wood the heavily uh embossed leather it's actually very much a working chamber and I'm standing at the dispatch box which where work government ministers lead with government business however I can report to the house that a pilot to return these bookings behind me on my right here is the government side and most of these benches are occupied by The peirs Who are of the government party save that right at the far end over my shoulder is where the Bishops always sit I'm now crossing the Chamber of the House of Lords onto the opposition side and the opposition sit along the benches on my left and it's not only the main opposition party it's also the crossbenchers who are The Independents and one of the unusual characteristics of the House of Lords is that there is a large independent presence which means that no one party has an overall majority there are three other important parts of the chamber that I think it's useful to know about the first one is the woag which is where the Lord speaker sits over to my right here is the Clarks table and the Clarks are the administrators the civil servants who keep us all right and finally over my shoulder is the Bal Throne so here we are in the grand committee room but it's also known as the Moses room and you will see from that picture of Moses coming down the mountain why it's known as that it's used for debates and uh where we discuss some of the detail of the legislation enables the chamber to be used for one bit of legislation and here for another and uh the minister sits here at the dispatch box his civil servants sit behind him and members of the public can sit here here and watch the proceedings in a very intimate experience for them we're in one of the division lobbies this is where we settle our arguments there are two division lobbies one for Content which means you're happy with the uh argument and the other is the not content where you disagree and we're in the not content if there is a dispute it is put to the vote when the vote is called bells ring throughout the houses of Parliament and you have 8 minutes to walk through this lobby after 8 minutes they see how many people have walked through they go into the chamber and they've all read out who has won and who has lost and that's the way we settle our arguments this is the Royal gallery and the gallery is used for ceremonial occasions which don't take place that often uh but it's used every day for meetings for example here we have a table six chairs there are other tables like this and uh there may be a meeting which has been set up involving people from outside the houses of Parliament or it may be simply appears hatching together some plan sometimes it's very crowded and very busy there's a lot going on and uh other times it's very quiet and slightly slightly spooky particularly late at night that way is the chamber but it's on the Upper Floor that a lot of the work is done in the committee rooms well we're off on the Comm Corridor uh uh with the house of Lord's chamber over there and the river over there and this place is really quiet now but normally it's a buzz with people pierce will spend as much time up here on the committee Corridor as they do down in the chamber you just get that sense of everything's alive here all the issues that are worrying people out there in the street they're actually going to be talking about here in this Corridor well we're up in one of the committee rooms uh some of the rooms are bigger than this some are smaller but they all pretty much look the same and this is where we do the important work of scrutinizing government policy and trying to influence future public policy debates you'll have people from all parties and indeed no parties coming together to really dig deeply into an issue that we feel strongly needs investigating be it energy or transport or how we're going to feed the world in the future so these doors here Mark The End Of The House of Lords committee Corridor down below us is the central Lobby which is the central point of the houses of Parliament with two Chambers flowing off from it the House of Lords on one side House of Commons over there

Channel: UK Parliament

Views: 528,852

Keywords: UK Parliament, Education, House of Lords

Id: _sLZBWcPklk

Length: 5min 45sec (345 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2013