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Is this lot any good to you? The country is divided into 650 parliamentar
19:05 Wed 06th Nov 2019
Is this lot any good to you?
The country is divided into 650 parliamentary constituencies, with an average of 72,000 people in each constituency in England (but rather fewer elsewhere in the UK).
Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament in General Election, using a simple 'first past the post' system, whereby the candidate with the greatest number of votes is elected.
If one political party gains more than 50% of parliamentary seats, the Queen invites the leader of that party to form her Government. If no single party holds more than 50% of the seats, the parties negotiate among themselves to find a way of forming a coalition of two or more parties which collectively holds the requisite number of seats, with the Queen then inviting the leader of the coalition to form her Government.
The leader of the party (or coalition) thus taking power automatically becomes Prime Minister. He/she then appoints the leaders of each department of Government, with the most senior of them joining the Cabinet, which is responsible for determining Government policy.
The leader of the political party which is not in Government, but which has the majority of the remaining seats, becomes the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition and appoints his/her Shadow Cabinet to respond to the actions of the Cabinet.
The MPs thus elected make up the membership of the House of Commons. They elect a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker from among their number to chair parliamentary debates.
There is a second, unelected, chamber within the Houses of Parliament, this being the House of Lords. Appointment to the House of Lords normally emanate from the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which considers recommendations from both political parties and the general public. Appointments have to be approved by the Prime Minister before being consented to by the Queen.
It is the role of the Government in general, and the Cabinet in particular, to formulate policy and to put forward legislation. Proposed legislation is brought before Parliament in the form of a Bill. Bill can start its progress through the system in either the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. In either case it must normally pass through a First Reading and then, after any amendments to it have been accepted, to a Second Reading. After that it is referred to a Committee, which then feeds the Bill into the Report Stage. If clears all of those hurdles it reaches its Third Reading. If the relevant House then gives approval to the Bill, it's then passed to the other House for the same process to be gone through again. If it gets through that stage, the Bill is then passed to the queen for Royal Assent, at which point it becomes law.
The preceding paragraph assumes that a Bill has fairly smooth passage through Parliament. In practice though there may be additional stages. For example a Bill might be approved by the House of Commons but be unacceptable to the House of Lords. In which case it can be referred back to the lower House for further consideration. A Bill normally needs the consent of both Houses before it become law but, in exceptional circumstances, the House of Commons can use the Parliament Act to overrule the House of Lords through voting it down in two successive sessions of Parliament. (That power has only been used twice in this century).
Er, what else do you need to know?
The country is divided into 650 parliamentary constituencies, with an average of 72,000 people in each constituency in England (but rather fewer elsewhere in the UK).
Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament in General Election, using a simple 'first past the post' system, whereby the candidate with the greatest number of votes is elected.
If one political party gains more than 50% of parliamentary seats, the Queen invites the leader of that party to form her Government. If no single party holds more than 50% of the seats, the parties negotiate among themselves to find a way of forming a coalition of two or more parties which collectively holds the requisite number of seats, with the Queen then inviting the leader of the coalition to form her Government.
The leader of the party (or coalition) thus taking power automatically becomes Prime Minister. He/she then appoints the leaders of each department of Government, with the most senior of them joining the Cabinet, which is responsible for determining Government policy.
The leader of the political party which is not in Government, but which has the majority of the remaining seats, becomes the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition and appoints his/her Shadow Cabinet to respond to the actions of the Cabinet.
The MPs thus elected make up the membership of the House of Commons. They elect a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker from among their number to chair parliamentary debates.
There is a second, unelected, chamber within the Houses of Parliament, this being the House of Lords. Appointment to the House of Lords normally emanate from the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which considers recommendations from both political parties and the general public. Appointments have to be approved by the Prime Minister before being consented to by the Queen.
It is the role of the Government in general, and the Cabinet in particular, to formulate policy and to put forward legislation. Proposed legislation is brought before Parliament in the form of a Bill. Bill can start its progress through the system in either the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. In either case it must normally pass through a First Reading and then, after any amendments to it have been accepted, to a Second Reading. After that it is referred to a Committee, which then feeds the Bill into the Report Stage. If clears all of those hurdles it reaches its Third Reading. If the relevant House then gives approval to the Bill, it's then passed to the other House for the same process to be gone through again. If it gets through that stage, the Bill is then passed to the queen for Royal Assent, at which point it becomes law.
The preceding paragraph assumes that a Bill has fairly smooth passage through Parliament. In practice though there may be additional stages. For example a Bill might be approved by the House of Commons but be unacceptable to the House of Lords. In which case it can be referred back to the lower House for further consideration. A Bill normally needs the consent of both Houses before it become law but, in exceptional circumstances, the House of Commons can use the Parliament Act to overrule the House of Lords through voting it down in two successive sessions of Parliament. (That power has only been used twice in this century).
Er, what else do you need to know?
■ The Queen is totally in charge, but in practice she delegates the running of the country to an elected Parliament.
■ The UK is divided into 650 areas called Constituencies of roughly the same number of voters (Approx. 72,000 voters).
■ Every 5 years (or less) we have a countrywide election to elect MPs.
■ The Party that gets the 326 seats in Constituencies is the outright winner and gets to form the Government.
■ If the winning party gets less than 326 seats then it doesn’t have a majority and needs to form a pact or coalition with other Parties.
■ There are two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, that usually get control.
■ Less popular parties are the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, Greens, UKIP and this time the Brexit Party.
■ The Governments since 2010 has been unstable because the winning party had no or little majority.
■ The Constituency elections use a winner takes all method of deciding the winner.
■ The UK is divided into 650 areas called Constituencies of roughly the same number of voters (Approx. 72,000 voters).
■ Every 5 years (or less) we have a countrywide election to elect MPs.
■ The Party that gets the 326 seats in Constituencies is the outright winner and gets to form the Government.
■ If the winning party gets less than 326 seats then it doesn’t have a majority and needs to form a pact or coalition with other Parties.
■ There are two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, that usually get control.
■ Less popular parties are the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, Greens, UKIP and this time the Brexit Party.
■ The Governments since 2010 has been unstable because the winning party had no or little majority.
■ The Constituency elections use a winner takes all method of deciding the winner.
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