Handbook

Chapter 5: The UK government, the law and your role

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Parliament, elections and international bodies

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about 20 min

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16 questions

Parliament and Elections: How Voting Works

On polling day in December 2019, one voter in Oxford went into a launderette to vote. In Hampshire, people voted in a pub with no sign outside. In Suffolk, the polling station stood next to a windmill about 200 years old. And plenty of people took their dogs along and posted the photos online, which has now become a tradition at every election.

In the UK, you often vote somewhere very ordinary: a church hall, a school or a community centre. Polling day is nearly always a Thursday. But who are you choosing with that vote? What do they do in Parliament? Who is allowed to vote, and how do you do it? This chapter answers all of that, and then looks at the international organisations the UK belongs to.

No law actually says polling day must be a Thursday, but every general election since 1935 has been held on one. A popular explanation is that Thursday keeps clear of weekend religious services and comes before Friday, the old payday, so voters wouldn't spend their wages in the pub first. Nobody really knows the true reason, so treat it as a handy story rather than a fact.

The House of Commons: the MPs you elect

As the previous chapter explained, the UK is divided into many parliamentary areas called constituencies. Each one elects a Member of Parliament (MP), and together the MPs make up the House of Commons.

Parliament has two Houses. The Commons is seen as the more important one, because its members are chosen by the people in democratic elections. The Prime Minister and almost every member of the Cabinet sit in the Commons. Each MP looks after one constituency, which is a small area of the country.

An MP's job has four parts:

Speaking for everyone in the constituency

Helping to make new laws

Checking and commenting on the government

Debating big national issues

The House of Lords: the House with no elections

The other House of Parliament is the House of Lords. Its members are called peers. Voters do not elect them, and they do not represent a constituency. Over the last 50 years or so, what the Lords does and who sits there have changed a great deal:

1. Before 1958Every peer was a hereditary peer (someone who inherited a title from their family), a senior judge or a bishop of the Church of England
2. 1958The Prime Minister can now put forward life peers: their title lasts for their own lifetime and can't be passed on to their children
3. 1999Hereditary peers no longer get a seat automatically; instead they elect a small number of themselves to sit in the House

Life peers have usually done important work in politics, business, law or another profession. The monarch appoints them, acting on the Prime Minister's advice. The leaders of the other main parties can also put names forward, and people with no party are nominated by an independent Appointments Commission.

So what does the House of Lords do?

• It is normally more independent of the government than the Commons.
• It can suggest changes to laws or propose new ones, which MPs then discuss.
• It looks closely at laws passed by the Commons to make sure they will actually work.
• It keeps an eye on the government to check that it is working in the public's best interest.
• Some peers are experts in a particular field, and that knowledge helps when laws are being made and checked.

If the two Houses disagree, the Commons has the power to overrule the Lords, although this rarely happens.

The Speaker: the referee of the Commons

When the Commons holds a debate, the person sitting in the middle and running things is the Speaker. The Speaker is the Commons' chief officer, and the role is an unusual one:

• The Speaker is an MP too, still representing a constituency and dealing with local people's problems. But while in the job, the Speaker stays neutral and does not represent any party.
• Other MPs choose the Speaker in a secret ballot (a vote where nobody sees how you voted).
• The Speaker keeps order in debates and makes sure everyone follows the rules. That includes making sure the opposition gets a fair amount of time to debate topics it chooses.
• At ceremonies, the Speaker represents Parliament.

General elections, by-elections and "first past the post"

MPs are chosen at a General Election, held at least once every five years. When an MP dies or steps down, a separate election to replace them is held in that constituency. This is called a by-election.

MPs are elected using a system called first past the post. In each constituency, the candidate with the most votes wins, even without more than half of all the votes. The party that wins most constituencies, with a majority of seats, normally forms the government. If no party has a majority, two parties can work together and form a coalition.

The name comes from horse racing: the first horse to pass the winning post wins, however small its lead. In the same way, one vote more than anyone else is enough to win a seat.

Not every UK election works like this. The devolved parliaments and assemblies you'll meet later in this chapter are elected by forms of proportional representation, where each party's share of the seats roughly follows its share of all the votes.

Need your MP? Write, phone, or go to a "surgery"

Every elected representative has a duty to serve and represent the people who elected them. Here is how to get in touch with yours:

• Look up the contact details of your representatives and their parties at a local library or on the UK Parliament website (parliament.uk). MPs, Assembly members and MSPs are also listed in BT's The Phone Book.
• Contact them by letter or phone, either at their local constituency office or at their House of Commons office.
• Many MPs hold regular surgeries in their area, where you can go and talk to them in person about anything that worries you. Surgery times are usually advertised in the local newspaper.

Devolution: Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast

Since 1997, the central government has handed some of its powers to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is called devolution, and the powers are devolved: people there get more say over the things that affect them directly. The Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament have existed since 1999. Northern Ireland has the Northern Ireland Assembly, although it has been suspended several times.

So which decisions stay in London, and which are made locally?

Each of the three devolved administrations also has its own civil service.

Wales: the National Assembly in Cardiff

The Welsh government and the National Assembly for Wales are based in Cardiff, the Welsh capital. The Assembly has 60 members, called Assembly Members (AMs). Elections take place every four years and use a form of proportional representation. Members can speak in Welsh or English, and everything the Assembly publishes is in both languages.

The Assembly can pass laws for Wales in 21 areas, among them education and training, health and social services, economic development, and housing. Since 2011, it has been able to make laws in these areas without the agreement of the UK Parliament.

Scotland: the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh

The Scottish Parliament was set up in 1999 and sits in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It has 129 members, called MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament), who are elected by a form of proportional representation.

The Scottish Parliament has more power than the Welsh Assembly. It can make laws for Scotland on anything that is not specifically kept for the UK Parliament, such as civil and criminal law, health, education and planning, and it also has some extra powers to raise taxes.

The Parliament's own building at Holyrood wasn't finished until 2004, so for its first five years MSPs met in the Church of Scotland's General Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. The new building ended up costing far more than planned, which caused quite a row at the time.

Northern Ireland: the Assembly at Stormont

When Ireland was divided in 1922, Northern Ireland got its own Northern Ireland Parliament. After the conflict known as the Troubles broke out in 1969, that Parliament was abolished in 1972.

In 1998 the Belfast Agreement, also called the Good Friday Agreement, was signed. Soon afterwards the present Northern Ireland Assembly was created. Under a power-sharing arrangement, the jobs of the ministers in charge of government departments are shared out between the main parties. The Assembly has 108 members, called MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), elected by proportional representation.

The Northern Ireland Assembly makes decisions on matters such as education, agriculture, the environment, health and social services.

The UK government has the power to suspend any of the devolved assemblies. It has done this to the Northern Ireland Assembly several times, when the leaders of the political parties there found it hard to work together.

The media and government: Parliament in the open

What happens in Parliament is shown on television and printed in an official record called Hansard. You can read the written record in large libraries and on the Parliament website.

Hansard was a real person. In the early 19th century, reports of the debates were printed by a printer named Thomas Curson Hansard. Parliament later took over the job itself, but his name has stuck to this day.

Most people learn about politics from newspapers (often called "the press"), television, radio and the internet.

• The UK has a free press: the government does not control what newspapers write. Some newspaper owners and editors have strong political views and run campaigns to sway government policy and public opinion.
• Television and radio are different: by law, they must give balanced coverage of the political parties and allow equal time for opposing views.

Who can vote? Get on the electoral register first

The previous chapter told the story of how the right to vote was won step by step. Full democracy at the ballot box arrived in 1928, and in 1969 the voting age was lowered to 18. With only a few exceptions, all adult citizens, whether born in the UK or naturalised (people who became citizens later), can vote.

Who can vote in every kind of public election? There are three groups:

The electoral register

To vote in a parliamentary or local election, your name must be on the electoral register (the official list of voters).

• If you are eligible, contact the electoral registration office at your local council to register. It is usually at the council itself, though in Scotland it may be somewhere else.
• If you don't know which council you belong to, the aboutmyvote website can find it from your postcode. You can also download registration forms there in English, Welsh and several other languages.
• The register is updated every year in September or October. A form is sent to every household, and someone fills it in with everyone living there who is eligible to vote, then sends it back.
• Northern Ireland does it differently, with individual registration: every eligible person fills in their own form. Once registered, you stay on the register as long as your details don't change.
• By law, the local council must let anyone look at the register, but only under supervision. It is kept at the local electoral registration office (in England and Wales, the council offices), and you can also see it in some libraries and other public buildings.

Polling day: from poll card to ballot box

You vote at a polling station, which in Scotland is called a polling place. Before the election you will receive a poll card in the post. It tells you where your polling station is and the date of the election. On polling day, polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm.

• When you arrive, polling station staff check your name and address. Voters in Northern Ireland also have to show photographic identification (photo ID).
• You are given a ballot paper, which you fill in privately in a polling booth. Who you vote for is your decision alone: nobody is allowed to pressure you into choosing a certain candidate.
• Fill it in by following the instructions on the paper, then put it in the ballot box.
• If getting to the polling station would be hard for you, you can apply to vote by post, using a postal ballot. The ballot paper comes to your home before polling day; you complete it and send it back. You can ask for this when you register to vote.

Standing for election yourself

You don't just have to vote: you can stand as a candidate too. If you are 18 or older and a citizen of the UK, the Irish Republic or a Commonwealth country, you can usually stand for public office. A few groups are excluded:

• members of the armed forces
• civil servants
• people who have been found guilty of certain criminal offences

Also, members of the House of Lords cannot stand for election to the House of Commons, although they can stand for any other public office.

Watching Parliament at work

Debates in Parliament are public, and anyone can go in and listen.

London: the UK Parliament

Members of the public can watch debates in the Palace of Westminster from the public galleries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It's free. You can ask your MP for tickets ahead of time by writing to them, or just join the queue at the public entrance on the day. For the Commons the wait can be an hour or two, or even longer; getting into the Lords is usually easier.

The three devolved bodies

• Northern Ireland: MLAs sit at Stormont, in Belfast. To arrange a visit, contact the Assembly's Education Service, use the Assembly's website, or ask an MLA.
• Scotland: MSPs sit in the Parliament building at Holyrood, Edinburgh. The visitor services team can give you information, book tickets and arrange tours.
• Wales: AMs meet in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. You can book a guided tour or a seat in the public gallery.

The UK and international organisations

The UK doesn't only elect representatives at home: it is also a member of many international organisations. The test often asks what each one does and how it differs from the others.

The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth is a group of countries that back one another and share the aims of democracy and development. Most of its members were once part of the British Empire, but a few countries that never were have joined too.

• The British monarch is the ceremonial head of the Commonwealth.
• It has 54 member states.
• No country has to join: membership is voluntary. The Commonwealth can't force its members to do anything, but it can suspend a member.
• Its core values are democracy, good government and the rule of law.

You don't need a British past to join. Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, became the first member that had never been part of the British Empire when it joined in 1995. Rwanda followed in 2009.

The Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is often confused with the EU, but it is a separate organisation. It has 47 member countries, including the UK. Its job is to protect and promote human rights in its member countries. It has no power to make laws; instead it draws up conventions and charters. The best known is the European Convention on Human Rights, which the next chapter looks at in detail.

The United Nations

The UK is a member of the United Nations (UN), which has more than 190 member countries. It was created after the Second World War, with the aim of preventing war and promoting international peace and security. The UN Security Council has 15 members and recommends what should be done when there is an international crisis or a threat to peace. The UK is one of its five permanent members.

The UN General Assembly actually met for the first time in London, on 10 January 1946, at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. The hall stands right opposite Westminster Abbey, a short walk from Parliament.

NATO

The UK is also a member of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). NATO is made up of countries in Europe and North America that have agreed to help one another if any of them is attacked. NATO also works to keep the peace between its members.

Chapter summary

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