1979–1983 Parliament of the United Kingdom | |||||
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![]() Palace of Westminster in 1981 | |||||
Overview | |||||
Legislative body | Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||||
Term | 3 June 1979 – 9 June 1983 | ||||
Election | 1979 United Kingdom general election | ||||
Government | First Thatcher ministry | ||||
House of Commons | |||||
Members | 635 | ||||
Speaker | George Thomas | ||||
Leader | Norman St John-Stevas Francis Pym John Biffen | ||||
Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher | ||||
Leader of the Opposition | James Callaghan Michael Foot | ||||
Third-party leader | David Steel | ||||
House of Lords | |||||
Lord Chancellor | Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone |
This is a list of members of Parliament (MPs) elected in the 1979 general election, held on 3 May. This Parliament was dissolved in 1983.
Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, was convened on Tuesday 15 May 1979 at the Palace of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II.
Of the 77 newcomers, two were women (Sheila Faith and Sheila Wright). In total, the Parliament had 19 female members (8 Conservative, 11 Labour), fewer than any post-war parliament before or since, with the sole exception of 1951. [1]
It was the election from which Margaret Thatcher, the incumbent Conservative Party leader became Prime Minister, the first female head of government in the United Kingdom and Europe.
These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1979 general election.
Note: The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru sit together as a party group. This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time.
Affiliation | Members | |
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Conservative Party | 339 | |
Labour Party | 269 | |
Liberal Party | 11 | |
Ulster Unionist Party | 5 | |
Democratic Unionist Party | 3 | |
Plaid Cymru | 2 | |
Scottish National Party | 2 | |
Independent Republican | 1 | |
Independent Ulster Unionist | 1 | |
Social Democratic and Labour Party | 1 | |
United Ulster Unionist Party | 1 | |
Total | 635 | |
Notional government majority | 43 | |
Effective government majority | 50 |
Table of contents: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z By-elections |
See the list of United Kingdom by-elections.
Two seats were vacant when Parliament was dissolved preparatory to the 1983 general election:
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 Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament. The Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.
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