The UK Parliament has two Houses that work on behalf of UK citizens to check and challenge the work of Government, make and shape effective laws, and debate/make decisions on the big issues of the day ...

Before 1918 no women were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. In the early 20th century there were two main groups active in the campaign for women's suffrage, a term used to describe the ...

The Life Peerages Act 1958 introduced more people from different professions, and more women. Before the Act, the House of Lords had been made up exclusively of hereditary Peers. A life Peer cannot ...

The Act of Settlement was passed in 1701, reinforcing the Bill of Rights agreed by William and Mary in 1689. The main aim of this legislation was to ensure a Protestant succession to the English ...

Negative procedure is a type of parliamentary procedure that applies to statutory instruments (SIs). Its name describes the form of scrutiny that the SI receives from Parliament. An SI laid under the ...

The King leaves Buckingham Palace in a procession that makes its way through the streets to the Houses of Parliament. The King then arrives at Sovereign's Entrance. When the King is seated upon the ...

If the Elizabeth Tower had not been urgently conserved, there was a risk that the clock mechanism might fail or that the building will become too costly or difficult to repair. Completed in 1859, the ...

UK Parliament manages your data in line with our responsibilities under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), as supplemented by the Data Protection ...

The following year, the Redistribution of Seats Act redrew boundaries to make electoral districts equal. As a result of this Act, most areas returned only one Member to Parliament, although 23 seats, ...

William Pitt the Younger was a reforming prime minister who was determined to do what he could to rationalise the British system of taxation. He was a keen devotee of the great economic thinker of the ...

Hybrid bills mix the characteristics of public and private bills. The changes to the law proposed by a hybrid bill would affect the general public but would also have a more significant impact on ...

The modern UK Parliament can trace its origins all the way back to two features of Anglo-Saxon government from the 8th to 11th centuries. These are the Witan and the moot. The Witan was the occasion ...