Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom is responsible for holding the work of the UK government to account. Its members, elected and unelected, discuss and vote on all proposed laws, and allow the government to tax the people. Through parliamentary sovereignty, the parliament is supreme above all other bodies within the UK and its territories. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of two houses, the 'lower' elected Commons and the 'upper' appointed Lords, and is ultimately ceremonially headed by the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Members of each house meet at the Palace of Westminster in London, with its clock tower housing Big Ben, the famous bell.

Of its two Houses, the Commons is more powerful because it is directly elected by the people not more than every five years. By convention, most government ministers are Members of Parliament, though some are drawn from the Lords and membership of Parliament is not required to serve. The Lords can delay, but not block, proposed laws, and has no role in scutinising Budget legislation; these bills rest with the Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the UK's finance minister.

The UK Parliament developed over many centuries, and through the British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations has become the model for several other parliaments around the world. Its roots are in mediaeval councils, which led to an English Parliament and eventually the establishment of the Parliament of Great Britain in 1707, when England and Wales were united with Scotland into one state. Nowadays, much legislation applied only to Scotland goes through the Scottish Parliament instead, since its creation in 1999.