IFES Election Guide - Country Profile: United Kingdom

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Parliamentary
June 2015

United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Region: Europe

Description of government structure:

Chief of State: Queen ELIZABETH II *
Head of Government: Prime Minister David CAMERON
Assembly: United Kingdom has a bicameral Parliament consisting of the House of Lords with 693 seats and the House of Commons with 646 seats.

* Heir Apparent Prince CHARLES (son of the queen, born 14 November 1948)

Description of electoral system:

The Queen is hereditary.
The Prime Minister is elected by parliament to serve a 5-year term. Following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition is usually the prime minister.
In the House of Lords, 526 members are appointed by the monarch and 92 members are hereditary *. In the House of Commons 659 members are elected by simple majority vote in single-member constituencies to serve 5-year terms.**

* The Queen formally appoints life peers based on a recommendation from the Prime Minister. The right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords was ended in 1999 by the House of Lords Act. However, 92 members will remain until the next stage of the Lords reform process.

** Starting with the 2005 parliamentary term, the number of Scottish constituencies in the UK parliament was reduced by 13 to restore parity with English seats after the 1999 Scottish devolution. The House of Commons consequently shrank to 646 seats.