Parliamentary Control Of Taxation In Britain

In common with many other aspects of freedom and justice in the United Kingdom, the concept of parliamentary control of taxation received one of its earliest expressions in Magna Carta. In 1215 the nobles obliged the King to agree to ‘no taxation without the consent of parliament’, and one of the cornerstones of the power of the purse exercised by the English (and later British) parliament was laid. The story of parliament’s long struggle to assert its claim to this power and subsequently to wield it and buttress it against the hostile policies of successive monarchs forms a major part of the history of parliament in Great Britain. The watchwords in the centuries of struggle which culminated in the Civil War and parliamentary victory of the seventeenth century were ‘No taxation without representation’ and ‘Redress before supply’, that is to say, taxpayers shall be represented in parliament, and grievances should be remedied by the Crown before money was granted.