The United Kingdom contains members of three different parliaments:
A candidate to become a Member of Parliament must be a British or Irish or Commonwealth citizen, must be over 18, and must not be a public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the Electoral Administration Act 2006[8] (this was a reduction in the lower age limit, as candidates needed to be 21 until the law came into effect in 2006).
Members of Parliament are technically forbidden to resign their seats (though they are not forbidden from refusing to seek re-election). To leave the house between elections voluntarily, a Member of Parliament must accept a "paid office under the Crown". Two nominally paid offices under the Crown – the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead – exist to allow members to apply for a paid office under the Crown and thereby to achieve a resignation from the House. Accepting a salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under the Crown for these purposes.[9]
The basic salary of a member of the House of Commons was increased to £64,766 with effect from 1 April 2009.[10] Some MPs (ministers, the Speaker, senior opposition leaders etc.) receive a supplementary salary for their specific responsibilities. As of 1 April 2008 these increments range from £14,039 for Select Committee Chairs to £130,959 for the Prime Minister. Members also receive expenses, including paying for buying and furnishing accommodation required when away from their main homes.[11] The pension arrangements of UK MPs are equally generous. The Member will normally receive a pension of either 1/40th or 1/50th of their final pensionable salary for each year of pensionable service depending on the contribution rate they will have chosen. Members who make contributions of 10% of their salary gain an accrual rate of 1/40th.[12] An MP who has served 26 years and retiring today could look forward to receiving an annual inflation-proof payout of £40,000 from their pension. State contributions for British Members of Parliament are more than four times higher than the average paid out by companies for final-salary schemes, although they are not significantly more generous than most public sector pensions.[13]
Members of the House of Lords, however their membership comes about, are members of a legislative chamber which is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although technically they are part of the parliament, they are never referred to in the United Kingdom as members of parliament but as peers, or more formally as Lords of Parliament. They sit either for life, in the case of the Lords Temporal, or so long as they continue to occupy their ecclesiastical positions in the case of the Lords Spiritual. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The ninety-two who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and, paradoxically, are the only elected members of the Lords.[14]
- the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in which only members elected at UK-wide General Elections to the (lower) House of Commons are referred to as Members of Parliament, abbreviated to MP(s)
- the European Parliament, in which members representing the whole of the UK are elected every five years and are called Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)
- the Scottish Parliament, in which members representing the whole of Scotland are elected every four years and are called Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs)
- the present Northern Ireland Assembly's members are known as Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).Between 1921 and 1973, Northern Ireland was governed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, a devolved assembly whose members were known as Members of Parliament.
- the National Assembly for Wales consists of sixty elected members, but it is not called a parliament, its members instead being referred to in English as Assembly Members (AMs) or in Welsh as Aelod y Cynulliad (AC).[7]
A candidate to become a Member of Parliament must be a British or Irish or Commonwealth citizen, must be over 18, and must not be a public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the Electoral Administration Act 2006[8] (this was a reduction in the lower age limit, as candidates needed to be 21 until the law came into effect in 2006).
Members of Parliament are technically forbidden to resign their seats (though they are not forbidden from refusing to seek re-election). To leave the house between elections voluntarily, a Member of Parliament must accept a "paid office under the Crown". Two nominally paid offices under the Crown – the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead – exist to allow members to apply for a paid office under the Crown and thereby to achieve a resignation from the House. Accepting a salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under the Crown for these purposes.[9]
The basic salary of a member of the House of Commons was increased to £64,766 with effect from 1 April 2009.[10] Some MPs (ministers, the Speaker, senior opposition leaders etc.) receive a supplementary salary for their specific responsibilities. As of 1 April 2008 these increments range from £14,039 for Select Committee Chairs to £130,959 for the Prime Minister. Members also receive expenses, including paying for buying and furnishing accommodation required when away from their main homes.[11] The pension arrangements of UK MPs are equally generous. The Member will normally receive a pension of either 1/40th or 1/50th of their final pensionable salary for each year of pensionable service depending on the contribution rate they will have chosen. Members who make contributions of 10% of their salary gain an accrual rate of 1/40th.[12] An MP who has served 26 years and retiring today could look forward to receiving an annual inflation-proof payout of £40,000 from their pension. State contributions for British Members of Parliament are more than four times higher than the average paid out by companies for final-salary schemes, although they are not significantly more generous than most public sector pensions.[13]
Members of the House of Lords, however their membership comes about, are members of a legislative chamber which is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although technically they are part of the parliament, they are never referred to in the United Kingdom as members of parliament but as peers, or more formally as Lords of Parliament. They sit either for life, in the case of the Lords Temporal, or so long as they continue to occupy their ecclesiastical positions in the case of the Lords Spiritual. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The ninety-two who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and, paradoxically, are the only elected members of the Lords.[14]
