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 Scottish Parliament is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyrood. The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), elected for five-year terms under the additional member system: 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality (first-past-the-post) system, while a further 56 are returned as list members from eight additional member regions. Each region elects seven party-list MSPs. Each region elects 15 to 17 MSPs in total. The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 6 May 2021, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality.
The Northern Ireland Assembly, often referred to by the metonym Stormont, is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to appoint the Northern Ireland Executive. It sits at Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast.
A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain before they become eligible to vote in a public election. The most common voting age is 18 years; however, voting ages as low as 16 and as high as 25 currently exist (see list below). Most countries have set a minimum voting age, often set in their constitution. In a number of countries voting is compulsory for those eligible to vote, while in most it is optional.
Robert John Blackman is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow East since 2010. He has served as the Joint Executive Secretary of the backbench 1922 Committee since 2012. He was the London Assembly member for Brent and Harrow between 2004 and 2008.
Helen Catherine Goodman is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament for Bishop Auckland from 2005 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she was Deputy Leader of the House of Commons from 2007 to 2008 and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2009 to 2010. She also served in government as an Assistant Whip from 2008 to 2009.
Brooks Phillip Victor Newmark is a British Conservative politician and former Member of Parliament and minister. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Braintree in the 2005 general election and stood down at the 2015 general election.
In England, local authorities have duties to homeless people under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 as amended by the Homelessness Act 2002. There are five hurdles which a homeless person must overcome in order to qualify as statutory homeless. If an applicant only meets the first three of these tests Councils still have a duty to provide interim accommodation. However an applicant must satisfy all five for a Council to have to give an applicant "reasonable preference" on the social housing register. Even if a person passes these five tests councils have the ability to use the private rented sector to end their duty to a homeless person.
The Climate Change Act 2008 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act makes it the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for all six Kyoto greenhouse gases for the year 2050 is at least 100% lower than the 1990 baseline, toward avoiding dangerous climate change. The Act aims to enable the United Kingdom to become a low-carbon economy and gives ministers powers to introduce the measures necessary to achieve a range of greenhouse gas reduction targets. An independent Committee on Climate Change was created under the Act to provide advice to UK Government on these targets and related policies. In the act Secretary of State refers to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
Leonard Warren Webber is a Canadian politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for the riding of Calgary Confederation since 2015 as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. During the 43rd Canadian Parliament his private member bill An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act was adopted to allow Canadians to indicate their intent to sign up as a donor through their annual income tax return. Previously, he was a Conservative Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, representing the constituency of Calgary-Foothills from 2004 to 2014, serving cabinet portfolios of Minister of International & Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Aboriginal Relations.
Joyce Murray is a Canadian politician, businesswoman and environmental advocate. A member of the Liberal Party of Canada, she has represented the riding of Vancouver Quadra in the House of Commons since 2008. She was re-elected in the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, and 44th federal elections. Murray was appointed as President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government on March 18, 2019. She was re-appointed as Minister of Digital Government following the 2019 election.
Heather Kay Wheeler is a British Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the member of Parliament (MP) for South Derbyshire, taking the seat from the Labour Party after 13 years.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that for the first time set in legislation a default fixed election date for a general election to the Westminster parliament. Since the repeal of the FTPA, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so. Prime ministers have often employed this mechanism to call an election before the end of their five-year term, sometimes fairly early in it, and critics saw this as giving an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister. While it was in force, the FTPA removed this longstanding power of the prime minister.
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck is a Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields since winning a by-election in 2013. She is South Shields’s first female MP.
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the first and only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU and its predecessor the European Communities (EC) since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws, except in select areas in relation to Northern Ireland. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can now amend or repeal. Under the terms of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland continues to participate in the European Single Market in relation to goods, and to be a de facto member of the EU Customs Union.
Kirsty Ann Blackman is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen North since 2015.
Wendy Morton is a British politician who has served as Chief Whip of the House of Commons and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury since 6 September 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aldridge-Brownhills in the West Midlands since 2015.
An Act of the Scottish Parliament is primary legislation made by the Scottish Parliament. The power to create Acts was conferred to the Parliament by section 28 of the Scotland Act 1998 following the successful 1997 referendum on devolution.
Chlöe Charlotte Swarbrick is a New Zealand politician and entrepreneur. Following a high-profile but unsuccessful run for the 2016 Auckland mayoral election, she became a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, standing in the 2017 New Zealand general election and was elected as a member of the New Zealand Parliament at the age of 23. In the 2020 election, Swarbrick was elected as the Member of Parliament for Auckland Central, becoming the second Green Party MP to win an electorate seat in the history of the party, and the first minor party MP since the inception of MMP to win a general electorate seat without a tacit endorsement from a major party leader.
The Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is an amendment to the Constitution of Ireland which altered the provisions regulating divorce. It removed the constitutional requirement for a defined period of separation before a Court may grant a dissolution of marriage, and eased restrictions on the recognition of foreign divorces. The amendment was effected by an act of the Oireachtas, the Thirty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act 2019.
