The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The boundary commissions in the United Kingdom are non-departmental public bodies responsible for determining the boundaries of constituencies for elections to the House of Commons. There are four boundary commissions:
The Reform Acts were legislation enacted in the United Kingdom in the 19th and 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Over the history of the House of Commons, the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) has varied for assorted reasons, with increases in recent years due to increases in the population of the United Kingdom. There are currently 650 constituencies, each sending one MP to the House of Commons, corresponding to approximately one for every 92,000 people, or one for every 68,000 parliamentary electors.
Monmouth is a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The seat was created for the 1918 general election. Since 2005 the Member of Parliament (MP) has been David Davies of the Conservative Party.
In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom currently has 650 parliamentary constituencies across the constituent countries, each electing a single member of parliament (MP) to the House of Commons by the plurality voting system, ordinarily every five years. Voting last took place in all 650 of those constituencies at the United Kingdom general election on 12 December 2019.
The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a piece of electoral reform legislation that redistributed the seats in the House of Commons, introducing the concept of equally populated constituencies, a concept in the broader global context termed equal apportionment, in an attempt to equalise representation across the UK. It was associated with, but not part of, the Representation of the People Act 1884.
The Electoral Administration Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed on 11 July 2006.
The Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1832, commonly called the Irish Reform Act 1832, was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the election laws of Ireland. The act was passed at approximately the same time as the Reform Act 1832, which applied to England and Wales.
Electors must be on the electoral register in order to vote in elections and referendums in the UK. Electoral registration officers within local authorities have a duty to compile and maintain accurate electoral registers.
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local elections, mayoral elections, and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Within each of those categories, there may also be by-elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday, and under the provisions of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 the timing of general elections can be held at the discretion of the prime minister during any five-year period. All other types of elections are held after fixed periods, though early elections to the devolved assemblies and parliaments can occur in certain situations. The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality, the single transferable vote, the additional member system, and the supplementary vote.
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011(c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made provision for the holding of a referendum on whether to introduce the Alternative Vote system in all future general elections to the UK Parliament and also made provision on the number and size of parliamentary constituencies. The Bill for the Act was introduced to the House of Commons on 22 July 2010 and passed third reading on 2 November by 321 votes to 264. The House of Lords passed the Bill, with amendments, on 14 February 2011, and after some compromises between the two Houses on amendments, it received Royal Assent on 16 February 2011.
The 2013 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, also known as the Sixth Review, or just boundary changes, was an ultimately unfruitful cycle of the process by which constituencies of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are reviewed and redistributed. The four UK boundary commissions carried out their reviews between 2011 and 2013, but their recommendations were not taken up by the government and instead the 2018 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies was carried out from 2016 to 2018. That review was also not implemented and its results were formally laid aside in 2020.
The Electoral Registration Act 2005 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It expired on 24 February 2006.
Individual Electoral Registration (IER) is the voter registration system which took effect from 10 June 2014 in England and Wales and from 19 September 2014 in Scotland. Under the previous system, the "head of the household" was required to register all residents of the household who are eligible. Under the new system individuals are required to register themselves, as well as provide their National Insurance number and date of birth on the application form so that their identity can be verified.
The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom introduced in July 2013. The bill was sponsored by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). It was often referred to as "The Lobbying Bill" for short. It passed all parliamentary stages, and received royal assent on 30 January 2014.
The 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies was the most recent cycle of the process to redraw the constituency map for the House of Commons. The process for periodic reviews of parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom is governed by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, as amended by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and subsequently by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020. This review was the successor to the 2018 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which was ultimately abandoned after it failed to pass into law.
The 2018 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies was an ultimately unfruitful cycle of the process by which constituencies of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are reviewed and redistributed. The four UK boundary commissions carried out their reviews between 2016 and 2018, but their recommendations were not taken up by the government and were formally laid aside in 2020.
