Parliamentary ping-pong (or "lutte a la corde") is a phrase used to describe a phenomenon in the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

, in which legislation appears to rapidly bounce back and forth between the two chambers like a ping-pong ball bounces between the players in a game of table tennis

Table tennis

Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...

.

Procedure

The British Parliament is bicameral

Bicameralism

In the government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses....

, consisting of the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 and the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

. The rule is that before a Bill

Bill (proposed law)

A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....

 can receive the Royal Assent

Royal Assent

The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...

 and become law, it must be passed in its final form by both the Commons and the Lords without changes. If one of the Houses makes any change or amendment to it, the other House has to agree to those changes, or make counter-changes of its own, in which case it returns to the other House.

The debates in which the Bill is considered are usually scheduled weeks or months apart. However, in some circumstances the normal legislative procedure is radically accelerated to the extent that the proposed law, or Bill, appears to bounce back and forth between the two chambers like a ping-pong ball.
However, in certain circumstances when there is a non-negotiable time limit, and the two Houses disagree vehemently on the matter, this process can be speeded up to less than six hours per cycle, and carries on until one of the sides caves in.

Usually the time limit is imposed by the end of the Parliamentary session when all business, including incomplete Bills, simply gets erased from the books and has to start again. This usually occurs at the state opening of Parliament some time in November - Parliament can continue working on the previous year right up to the night before. Another instance is just after a general election is called, when Parliament can work for a few days before it gets dissolved, and the legislation it is working on must either get completed or be thrown away.

"Lutte a la corde"

"Lutte a la corde" (French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, meaning tug of war

Tug of war

Tug of war, also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war or rope pulling, is a sport that directly pits two teams against each other in a test of strength. The term may also be used as a metaphor to describe a demonstration of brute strength by two opposing groups, such as a rivalry between two...

, lit. "struggle of the rope") is an older term for Parliamentary ping-pong. Believed to derive from the Norman French, in recent times it has fallen out of common usage.

An example: the Prevention of Terrorism Bill

An extreme example of ping-ponging began on the night of 10 March 2005 and ran for thirty hours. The Bill in question was the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2005

Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, intended to deal with the Law Lords' ruling of 16 December 2004 that the detention without trial of eight foreigners at HM Prison Belmarsh under Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001...

, necessary to create the control order

Control order

A control order is an order made by the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom to restrict an individual's liberty for the purpose of "protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism". Its definition and power were provided by Parliament in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005...

 so that the 10 terrorist suspects imprisoned under recently nullified Part IV of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001

Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001

The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was formally introduced into the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 19 November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks on New York on 11 September. It received royal assent and came into force on 14 December 2001...

 could be prevented from walking free. The dispute was over whether the Bill should have a sunset clause. The timetable of this session ran as follows:

House of Lords - 11:31am to 3:00pm

House of Commons - 6:00pm to 7:37pm

House of Lords - 10:15pm to 11:26pm

House of Commons - 1:20am to 2:39am

House of Lords - 5:00am to 5.56am

House of Commons - 8:00am to 9:13am

House of Lords - 11:40am to 1:11pm

House of Commons - 3:30pm to 4pm

House of Lords - 6:30pm to 7:00pm

The Bill received Royal assent at 7:20pm.

Other recent examples

• Alternative Vote debate in February 2011
• ID Cards debate in March 2006
• House of Commons and House of Lords transcripts for 10 March 2005.
• Education Bill in July 2002