Member of Parliament

A **member of parliament** (**MP**) is the representative of the people who live in his/her constituency. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this category includes specifically members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title. Member of Congress is an equivalent term in other jurisdictions.

Members of parliament seem to tend to form parliamentary groups (also called *parliamentary parties*) with members of the same political party.

## Westminster system

The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

### United Kingdom

The United Kingdom elects members of its parliament:

* The Parliament of the United Kingdom, with 650 members elected by the first-past-the-post system to the (lower) House of Commons, referred to as Members of Parliament, abbreviated to *MP*

and four devolved legislatures:

* The Scottish Parliament, with 129 members elected under the additional member system every five years, and each called Member of the Scottish Parliament (*MSP*; Scottish Gaelic: *Ball Pàrlamaid na h-Alba, BPA*; Scots: *Memmer o the Scots Pairliament, MSP*)
* The Northern Ireland Assembly, with 90 members each known as Member of the Legislative Assembly (*MLA*; Irish: *Comhalta den Tionól Reachtach, CTR*; Ulster-Scots: *Laa-Makkan Forgaitherar*, LMF). (Between 1921 and 1973, Northern Ireland was governed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, whose members were known as *Member of Parliament*.)
* the Welsh Assembly, with 60 elected members called *Member of the Senedd* (*English - MS*) ; Welsh: *Aelod o'r Senedd, AS*)
* the London Assembly, with 25 members elected under the additional member system every four years, called *Members of the London Assembly* (*AM*)

MPs are elected in general elections and by-elections to represent constituencies, and may remain MPs until Parliament is dissolved, which occurs around five years after the last general election, as laid down in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.

A candidate to become an MP must be a British or Irish or Commonwealth citizen, be at least 18 years of age (reduced from 21 in 2006), and not be a public official or officeholder, as set out in the schedule to the Electoral Administration Act 2006.

Technically, MPs have no right to resign their seats (though they may refuse to seek re-election). However a legal fiction allows voluntary resignation between elections; as MPs are forbidden from holding an "office of profit under the Crown", an MP wishing to resign will apply for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead which are nominally, such paid offices and thus result in the MP vacating their seat. (Accepting a salaried Ministerial office does not amount to a paid office under the Crown for these purposes.)

The House of Lords is a legislative chamber that is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although they are part of the parliament, its members are referred to as peers, more formally as *Lords of Parliament*, not MPs. Lords Temporal sit for life, Lords Spiritual while they occupy their ecclesiastical positions. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The 92 who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and are the only elected members of the Lords.