1966–1970 Parliament of the United Kingdom | |||||
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Overview | |||||
Legislative body | Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||||
Term | 31 March 1966 – 29 May 1970 | ||||
Election | 1966 United Kingdom general election | ||||
Government | Second Wilson ministry | ||||
House of Commons | |||||
Members | 630 | ||||
Speaker | Horace King | ||||
Leader | Herbert Bowden Richard Crossman Fred Peart | ||||
Prime Minister | Harold Wilson | ||||
Leader of the Opposition | Edward Heath | ||||
Third-party leader | Jo Grimond Jeremy Thorpe | ||||
House of Lords | |||||
Lord Chancellor | Baron Gardiner |
This is a list of members of Parliament elected at the 1966 general election, held on 31 March.
These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1966 general election.
Note: This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time.
Affiliation | Members | |
Labour Party | 364 | |
Conservative Party | 253 | |
Liberal Party | 12 | |
Republican Labour Party | 1 | |
Total | 630 | |
Effective government majority | 98 |
This is a list of members of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1966 general election, held on 31 March.
Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included David Owen, John Nott, Michael Heseltine, Jack Ashley, Donald Dewar, Gwyneth Dunwoody, John Pardoe, David Winnick, Gerry Fitt and Andrew Faulds.
Table of contents: |
See the list of United Kingdom by-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; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak since 2022, serves as the elected head of government.
The politics of Scotland operate within the constitution of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a country. Scotland is a democracy, being represented in both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom since the Scotland Act 1998. Most executive power is exercised by the Scottish Government, led by the First Minister of Scotland, the head of government in a multi-party system. The judiciary of Scotland, dealing with Scots law, is independent of the legislature and the Scottish Government. Scots law is primarily determined by the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government shares some executive powers with the Scotland Office, a British government department led by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The 1966 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 31 March 1966. The result was a landslide victory for the Labour Party led by incumbent Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Scottish Affairs Select Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The remit of the committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and relations with the Scottish Parliament. It also looks at the administration and expenditure of the Advocate General for Scotland.
The fifty-fifth Parliament of the United Kingdom was the legislature of the United Kingdom following the 2010 general election of members of parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, was convened on 25 May 2010 at the Palace of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II. It was dissolved on 30 March 2015, being 25 working days ahead of the 2015 general election on 7 May 2015.