Hansard , the transcripts of the Commons debates dating back to 1829 .
We made our way into the House of Commons Chamber , which was surprisingly much smaller than it looks on television .
Around the top of the Chamber lie the heraldic shields , one for each of the MPs killed during the First and Second World Wars and those who lost their lives to IRA bombers . There is suggestion that Jo Cox , the Labour MP murdered in her constituency in June 2016 , may also be remembered with a heraldic shield .
The Table of the House sits between the Government and opposition sides . The two iconic Despatch boxes on each side of the Chamber are where much of the action in the House of Commons takes place . The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition sit directly behind their respective boxes on opposite sides of the Chamber . The gangway separating them is known as the Floor of the House , which was designed to be , “ two sword lengths apart ”.
Originally the Speaker ’ s Chair was designed as a toilet . This was to allow the Speaker to go to the toilet during debates which would not be allowed to continue if he had to leave . A curtain was pulled around the Chair and MPs would stamp their feet and generally make lots of noise to cover the up the sound of the Speaker relieving himself !
Next we visited the Central Lobby ; the central point between the House of Commons and the House of Lords Chambers . Central Lobby houses a number of statues of important 19th century British statesmen including William Ewart Gladstone , who served four terms as Prime Minister .
We passed through the Peers Lobby , through the solid brass gates decorated with roses , thistles and shamrocks , into the Lords Chamber .
The Lord spends about 60 per cent of its time in the Chamber initiating , examining and revising legislation . The other 40 per cent of time is devoted to scrutiny - questioning the Government and debating policy . For over 600 years , the House of Lords was the highest
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