The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (23 page)

William Henry Beveridge , 1st Baron (1879–1963) was author of the ‘Beveridge Report’ (‘
Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services
’ 1942), which proposed a comprehensive ‘cradle to the grave’ scheme of social insurance covering all citizens irrespective of income, and which shaped much subsequent British legislation. Beveridge also wrote two influential reports on unemployment (1909 and 1944) and directed labour exchanges while a civil servant at the Board of Trade. See also
welfare state
.
SW 

 
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The view that a legislative chamber should be properly composed of two houses. In the majority of states, the second or upper house has a more restricted role, for example limited to checking or delaying legislation introduced in the lower house, but an important exception is the United States where both the
Senate
and the
House of Representatives
play an important role in the legislative process. In such a system where the two houses have broadly equivalent power, it is necessary to provide a mechanism to resolve differences between them, such as
joint committees
. In federal systems, the upper house often represents the units of the federation, which may be given an equal number of seats regardless of their size, as in the United States. In Germany, the consent of the upper house, the Bundesrat, which is not directly elected, is necessary in those areas which directly affect the competence of the federal units or Länder. Purely appointed bodies such as the Canadian Senate, whose members are appointed by the federal prime minister, may lack
legitimacy
, although one function of that institution has been to provide ministers from provinces where the governing party is weak. The United Kingdom's hereditary and appointed House of Lords has sometimes served as a source of opposition to unpopular government policies. Second chambers differ considerably in their methods of appointment or election, legitimacy, powers, and effective political role, making it difficult to advance a coherent philosophy of bicameralism.
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In George
Orwell's
1984, the embodiment of state power is ‘Big Brother’, a middle-aged man pictured almost everywhere and said to be always watching the people. Big Brother was, thus, a powerful, literary image of totalitarianism. His power over the mind is such that the dissident, Winston Smith , finally comes to love Big Brother at the end of the book. For Orwell , he combined elements of Hitler and Stalin, but perhaps also Lord Reith (the first chairman of the BBC), God, and Winston Churchill . The image of Big Brother has entered political language and propaganda and is used to connote the all-embracing power of the state.
LA 

 
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Proposed legislation which has not yet been enacted. In the United Kingdom there are two types of bill: public and private.
Public bills
presented by ministers in the House of Commons, which take up the most parliamentary time, follow a set procedure, which is also followed for other public bills and
private bills
but with some variations. A bill in its original form is merely a short title, usually with an explanatory memorandum signed on the back by the minister in charge. It is read for the first time in the House of Commons. Upon passing, a complete draft of parts or chapters, classes, and schedules is drawn up and submitted for a second reading in the House. Here members debate the general principle and purposes of the bill. If the vote to confirm the second reading is won the bill is then committed to a standing committee to debate the detail. Complex bills may be referred to a select committee first, which then passes its recommendations to the standing committee. For some bills, notably finance bills, the detail is debated by a committee of the whole house and/or a standing committee. A bill is then reported to the House complete with suggested amendments from the committee stage. During the report stage these and any further amendments are debated in the House. Ultimately, the bill complete with agreed amendments is then given its third reading, and upon passing is submitted to the House of Lords. Generally, the Lords agree suggested amendments to the bill after which it is returned to the Commons. Members may then debate only the amendments suggested by the Lords and pass on their views. This continues until agreement is reached. The bill in its final form is then taken to the monarch by the clerks of the House of Lords for royal assent. When this is received the bill becomes an act and a date of commencement for the act coming into force may be set. A bill may be defeated on a vote at any of the three readings in the House of Commons and by the House of Lords. A bill may also be lost by being talked out in the Commons and in committee. Governments anxious to prevent this resort to the
guillotine
procedure, by which a time limit for each stage of a bill's passage is set. Ultimately, the Commons has supremacy under the 1911 and 1949 Parliament Acts and can override a Lords' veto by passing a bill twice in successive sessions.
Similar procedures are in force in the US Congress, whose procedural rules were derived from eighteenth-century British parliamentary usage, except that the
separation of powers
ensures that there is no such thing as a government bill. However, Congress, like other genuinely
bicameral
legislatures, requires a conference procedure to reconcile versions of bills produced by the two houses.
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A law that indicates the guilt of an individual without trial. In effect, this transfers the functions of ascertaining guilt and sentencing from the judiciary to the legislature. Under Article One, sections nine and ten of the US Constitution, ‘No Bill of Attainder shall be passed by either Congress or State legislature’. Acts of Attainder were employed by the British Parliament between the fifteenth and early eighteenth century, but have not been used since.