TRMN:Parliament:RulesHoC
Rules of the House of Commons
Speaker of the House
The Speaker of the House shall be elected by the members of the House of Commons, and must therefore be a member of the House. This person shall serve for a term of one year, and may be re-elected twice.
The role of the Speaker of the House is as follows:
- Set the Agenda for Discussion
- Moderate Discussions in the House
- Share recommendations with the Royal Council
Forms of Address
MPs are not to refer to each other by name and instead always refer to “the honourable member for…” the Fleet or Station they were elected to. This does mean you could have multiple people referred to in the same manner.
If you can’t remember where someone is MP for you can refer to him or her as “the honourable gentleman” or “the honourable lady”.
If you’re talking about someone from the same party they can be referred to as “my honourable friend”, while members of the Royal – usually ministers –are “the right honourable”.
The exception to this is the Speaker, who can refer to anyone he likes by name.
MPs are only allowed to speak to one person in the House of Commons, the Speaker. Nobody else is ever directly addressed.
This is a formal manner of speech, beginning their sentences with “Mr./Mrs. Speaker”, and referring to “he” or “she” instead of “you” when making points about their opponents or friends in a debate.
Acceptable Language
Parliament has strict rules on “unparliamentary language”.
One banned word in particular stands out: ‘liar’.
- MPs who who accuse each other of lying are usually asked to withdraw the remarks by the Speaker, or face a suspension.
You’re also not allowed to call a fellow MP a ‘hypocrite’.
- This may be related to the conventions of Cabinet government. Under cabinet collective responsibility, the Royal Council must publicly support every decision the government makes or face the sack.
- In reality, not everyone always supports every decision the Royal Council makes and thus hypocrisy is practically built into the system.
Additionally, on the list Parliament’s banned words are the following archaic Sol expressions.
- Pipsqueak
- Swine
- Rat
- Tart
- Fuck
- Ass
- Dick – Depends on Context
- Pussy – Depends on Context
- Tits
- Boobs – Depends on Context
The following words are expressly permitted during the course of debate:
- Fribble
- Huckster
- Fatuous
- Nincompoop
- Flapdoodle
- Foozler
- Hornswoggler
- Meater
- Vazey
Responsibilities of the House of Commons
The members will be responsible for reasonable requests and questions from the members in the Fleet/Station. These requests and questions can be added to the Agenda by the members submitting them to the Speaker of the House.
Unacceptable Topics
There are a few topics which the House of Commons may not bring up as requests or questions. These are as follows:
- Changes to the testing requirements for ranks, positions, and billets
- Punitive actions against other members
- Structural changes to the existing organization
Acceptable Topics
This list of acceptable topics which the House of Commons may bring up as requests or questions is not exclusive, and is more to be used as an example, than a definitive list. These topics include, but are not limited to:
- Recommendations for changes to certain Award criteria to make them more clearly defined
- Recommendations for types of Civilian Chapters
- Recommendations for New Civilian Tracks
- Recommendations for Minister and Secretary level positions (2/3 majority needed for recommendation) – Except Home Secretary
- Recommendations for one Admiralty House Event per Fleet per Year regardless of Royal Council of Space Lord attendance (50%+1 majority needed per event + Confirmation from the House of Lords)
- Questions on why a policy was adopted by the Royal Council
- Recommendations for additional Acceptable Topics to the Royal Council
Additionally the House of Commons will be permitted to submit one nomination of a member to the House of Lords for possible elevation to the peerage per year.
Finally, the House of Commons will vote on any nominations for the Parliamentary Medal of Valor. The vote must be a 2/3 vote of the House. If both the House of Commons and the House of Lords vote to award a PMV, the First Lord of the Admiralty, on behalf of the Monarch, will issue the award at their earliest convenience.
Prime Ministers Questions
The Second week of every other Month, beginning in February, the Chamber shall be opened to the public to come and view the Prime Ministers Questions. A special forum channel will be set up for this. The Royal Council will be acting on behalf of the Government and will be in attendance. The MPs will have an opportunity to ask questions of the Royal Council, on behalf of their constituents, which the Royal Council must answer. The topic of these questions must be submitted two weeks in advance so that the appropriate members of the Royal Council, their staffs, or Space Lords can be made to appear.
The only acceptable responses to not answer questions are the following:
- “Mr./Mrs. Speaker, please inform the right honourable member that I do not know the answer to that question and will defer to the __________________.”;
- or,
- “Mr./Mrs. Speaker, I am unable to answer the question from the right honourable member as it would compromise information covered under a non-disclosure agreement.”
- or,
- “Mr./Mrs. Speaker, I am unable to answer the question from the right honourable member as it would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act.”