This is a list of parliaments of the United Kingdom , tabulated with the elections to the House of Commons and the list of members of the House. [1]
The parliaments are numbered from the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. For previous Westminster parliaments, see the list of parliaments of Great Britain and list of parliaments of England. For pre-Union Dublin parliaments, see the list of parliaments of Ireland. For pre-1707 Scottish parliaments, see the list of parliaments of Scotland.
Monarch | Number | Start date | Election | Members | Prime ministers | Party | Percentage of popular vote |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
George III | 1st | 1801 | none: co-opted | William Pitt Henry Addington | Tory | ||
2nd | 1802 | General election | MPs | Henry Addington William Pitt | Tory | ||
3rd | 1806 | General election | MPs | The Lord Grenville | Whig | ||
4th | 1807 | General election | MPs | The Duke of Portland Spencer Perceval The Earl of Liverpool | Tory | ||
5th | 1812 | General election | MPs | The Earl of Liverpool | Tory | ||
6th | 1818 | General election | MPs | The Earl of Liverpool | Tory | ||
George IV | 7th | 1820 | General election | MPs | The Earl of Liverpool | Tory | |
8th | 1826 | General election | MPs | The Earl of Liverpool George Canning The Viscount Goderich The Duke of Wellington | Tory | ||
William IV | 9th | 1830 | General election | MPs | The Earl Grey | Whig | |
10th | 1831 | General election | MPs | The Earl Grey | Whig | ||
11th | 1832 | General election | MPs | The Earl Grey The Viscount Melbourne Sir Robert Peel | Whig | 67.0 | |
12th | 1835 | General election | MPs | The Viscount Melbourne | Whig | 55.2 | |
Victoria | 13th | 1837 | General election | MPs | The Viscount Melbourne | Whig | 51.7 |
14th | 1841 | General election | MPs | Sir Robert Peel | Conservative | 56.9 | |
15th | 1847 | General election | MPs | Lord John Russell | Whig | 53.8 | |
16th | 1852 | General election | MPs | The Earl of Derby The Earl of Aberdeen | Conservative | 41.9 | |
17th | 1857 | General election | MPs | The Viscount Palmerston The Earl of Derby | Whig | 65.9 | |
18th | 1859 | General election | MPs | The Viscount Palmerston | Liberal | 65.7 | |
19th | 1865 | General election | MPs | The Earl Russell The Earl of Derby Benjamin Disraeli | Liberal | 59.5 | |
20th | 1868 | General election | MPs | William Ewart Gladstone | Liberal | 61.5 | |
21st | 1874 | General election | MPs | Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield from 1876) | Conservative | 44.3 | |
22nd | 1880 | General election | MPs | William Ewart Gladstone | Liberal | 54.7 | |
23rd | 1885 | General election | MPs | The Marquess of Salisbury William Ewart Gladstone | Liberal (minority) | 47.4 | |
24th | 1886 | General election | MPs | The Marquess of Salisbury | Conservative | 51.1 | |
25th | 1892 | General election | MPs | William Ewart Gladstone The Earl of Rosebery | Liberal (minority) | 45.4 | |
26th | 1895 | General election | MPs | The Marquess of Salisbury | Conservative | 49.0 | |
27th | 1900 | General election | MPs | The Marquess of Salisbury Arthur Balfour | Conservative | 50.3 | |
Edward VII | |||||||
28th | 1906 | General election | MPs | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman Herbert Asquith | Liberal | 48.9 | |
29th | 1910 (Jan) | General election | MPs | Herbert Asquith | Liberal (minority) | 43.5 | |
George V | |||||||
30th | 1910 (Dec) | General election | MPs | Herbert Asquith David Lloyd George | Liberal (minority) | 43.2 | |
31st | 1918 | General election | MPs | David Lloyd George | Coalition | 47.1 | |
32nd | 1922 | General election | MPs | Bonar Law | Conservative | 38.5 | |
33rd | 1923 | General election | MPs | Ramsay MacDonald | Labour (minority) | 30.7 | |
34th | 1924 | General election | MPs | Stanley Baldwin | Conservative | 46.8 | |
35th | 1929 | General election | MPs | Ramsay MacDonald | Labour (minority) | 37.1 | |
36th | 1931 | General election | MPs | Ramsay MacDonald | National Government | 67.2 | |
37th | 1935 | General election | MPs | Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain Winston Churchill | National Government | 53.3 | |
Edward VIII | |||||||
George VI | |||||||
38th | 1945 | General election | MPs | Clement Attlee | Labour | 49.7 | |
39th | 1950 | General election | MPs | Clement Attlee | Labour | 46.1 | |
40th | 1951 | General election | MPs | Winston Churchill (Sir Winston Churchill from 1953) | Conservative | 48.0 | |
Elizabeth II | |||||||
41st | 1955 | General election | MPs | Anthony Eden Harold Macmillan | Conservative | 49.7 | |
42nd | 1959 | General election | MPs | Harold Macmillan The Earl of Home (Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1959) | Conservative | 49.4 | |
43rd | 1964 | General election | MPs | Harold Wilson | Labour | 44.1 | |
44th | 1966 | General election | MPs | Harold Wilson | Labour | 48.0 | |
45th | 1970 | General election | MPs | Edward Heath | Conservative | 46.4 | |
46th | 1974 (Feb) | General election | MPs | Harold Wilson | Labour (minority) | 37.2 | |
47th | 1974 (Oct) | General election | MPs | Harold Wilson James Callaghan | Labour | 39.2 | |
48th | 1979 | General election | MPs | Margaret Thatcher | Conservative | 43.9 | |
49th | 1983 | General election | MPs | Margaret Thatcher | Conservative | 42.3 | |
50th | 1987 | General election | MPs | Margaret Thatcher John Major | Conservative | 42.2 | |
51st | 1992 | General election | MPs | John Major | Conservative | 41.9 | |
52nd | 1997 | General election | MPs | Tony Blair | Labour | 43.2 | |
53rd | 2001 | General election | MPs | Tony Blair | Labour | 40.7 | |
54th | 2005 | General election | MPs | Tony Blair Gordon Brown | Labour | 35.2 | |
55th | 2010 | General election | MPs | David Cameron | Coalition | 59.1 (Con: 36.1; Lib Dem: 23.0) | |
56th | 2015 | General election | MPs | David Cameron Theresa May | Conservative | 36.9 | |
57th | 2017 | General election | MPs | Theresa May Boris Johnson | Conservative | 42.4 | |
58th | 2019 | General election | MPs | Boris Johnson Liz Truss Rishi Sunak | Conservative | 43.6 | |
Charles III | |||||||
59th | 2024 | General election | MPs | Sir Keir Starmer | Labour | 33.7 |
The parties listed are those that won the election. During the 19th century, the party of government sometimes changed between general elections.
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.
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and convention, operates as a unitary parliamentary democracy. A hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Sir Keir Starmer since 2024, serves as the elected head of government.
The legislatures of the United Kingdom are derived from a number of different sources. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body for the United Kingdom and the British overseas territories with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each having their own devolved legislatures. Each of the three major jurisdictions of the United Kingdom has its own laws and legal system.
The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. The United Kingdom, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe, consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For local government in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own system of administrative and geographic demarcation. Consequently, there is "no common stratum of administrative unit encompassing the United Kingdom".
Politics of England forms the major part of the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with England being more populous than all the other countries of the United Kingdom put together. As England is also by far the largest in terms of area and GDP, its relationship to the UK is somewhat different from that of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The English capital London is also the capital of the UK, and English is the dominant language of the UK. Dicey and Morris (p26) list the separate states in the British Islands. "England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark.... is a separate country in the sense of the conflict of laws, though not one of them is a State known to public international law." But this may be varied by statute.
The 1999 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's part of the European Parliament election 1999. It was held on 10 June 1999. Following the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, it was the first European election to be held in the United Kingdom where the whole country used a system of proportional representation. In total, 87 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom across twelve new regional constituencies.
The Parliament of Ireland was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until the end of 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Lords were members of the Irish peerage and bishops. The Commons was directly elected, albeit on a very restricted franchise. Parliaments met at various places in Leinster and Munster, but latterly always in Dublin: in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Chichester House (1661–1727), the Blue Coat School (1729–31), and finally a purpose-built Parliament House on College Green.
In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons.
The first Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain was established in 1707 after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. It was in fact the 4th and last session of the 2nd Parliament of Queen Anne suitably renamed: no fresh elections were held in England or in Wales, and the existing members of the House of Commons of England sat as members of the new House of Commons of Great Britain. In Scotland, prior to the union coming into effect, the Scottish Parliament appointed sixteen peers and 45 Members of Parliaments to join their English counterparts at Westminster.
This is a list of the parliaments of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and of England from 1660 to the present day, with the duration of each parliament. The NP number is the number counting forward from the creation of the United Kingdom in 1801 and Great Britain in 1707. Prior to that, the parliaments are counted from the Restoration in 1660.
Multi-member constituencies existed in the Parliament of the United Kingdom and its predecessor bodies in the component parts of the United Kingdom from the earliest era of elected representation until they were abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1948. Since the 1950 general election, all members of the House of Commons have been elected from single-member constituencies.
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This is a list of the MPs for Irish constituencies, who were elected at the 1802 United Kingdom general election, to serve as members of the 2nd UK Parliament from Ireland, or who were elected at subsequent by-elections. There were 100 seats representing Ireland in this Parliament.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the United Kingdom:
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain after the 1707 Act of Union was passed in both the English and Scottish parliaments at the time. In 1801, with the union of Great Britain and Ireland, that house was in turn replaced by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
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.
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