The three branches of government

-Our legislature is Parliament which is split up into two chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords

-650 MPs/members, elected during general elections or in a by-election

-General elections are held every five years under the Fixed Terms Parliament Act

-Current Parliament(as of early January 2022) was elected in December 2019 but anything can happen at any time

-MPs sit in party groups

-Prime Minister sits on right of speaker; opposition sits on left

-Governing party sits on the side of the Prime Minister

-Composed of about 800 members who don't represent contituencies

-Either appointed or inherited titles- appointed is a life peer, inherited is a hereditary peer

-Life peers are appointed by party leaders in the House of Commons

-Nearly 200 'crossbenchers'- members who are not affiliated with any parties

-On the death of a hereditary, a new member of the same party is elected to replace them by the same party in the House of Lords

-Laws go through the House of Commons, then the House of Lords, then through the Queen

-People from all walks of life & experiences are in the House of Lords

-To scrutinise & pass new laws or amend old laws

-To hold the government accountable

-To provide personnel needed to form the government

-Governing people come from Parliament

-Prime Minister will already be an MP

-The last Prime Minister that was a member of the House of Lords was in 1902

-PM can choose ministers from either chambe to be a minister

-House of Commons has greater power on account of it being democratically & directly elected by the public

-The House of Lods cannot be democratically elected, as this would create an equal amount of power between itself and the House of Commons, which would mean the two would be very competitive

-House of Commons has the power to defeat any bill(proposal for a new law) and can get rid of government by a vote of no confidence

-HoL can delay legislation by asking the HoC to reconsider a law

-Because they are appointed, many HoL members are able to bring a considerable level of experitse to scrutinise policy & legislation

-Is sovereignty in the Parliament or in the public?

-HoL gets two attempts at asking the HoC to reconsider a law, otherwise the law is passed anyway

-In the UK system, we have a Cabinet government

-The UK government is composed of ministers of the Crown

-By convention, all government ministers will be members of the HoC or the HoL

-Ministers serve under the Prime Minister

-The Queen must approve of all ministers- she has prerogative power

-Government also includes senior civil servants who run the departments of state

-The principle of collective cabinet responsibility means that ministers will be expected to follow the party line or resign e.g. when Boris Johnson resigned from Theresa May's government in the summer of 2018

-Derives from their appointment by the sovereign to lead the government

-Sovereign will take advice, but will normally appoint the leader

-If a PM is unseated as a party leader or resigns, the sovereign can choose the PM's replacement without any need for a general election

-The PM can act under the authority of commanding a parliamentary majority

-The PM has the power to hire any minister

-They can serve for however long the public wants

-The Judiciary is independent to the legislature & the executive

-The highest court in the UK is the Supreme Court, which sits outside of the House of Lords

-Prior to Brexit, the highest court in the system was the European Court of Justice

-The UK remains a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights as of early January 2022, although it has been suggested the government will replace this with a Bill of Rights

-The UK Supreme Court is considered as the court of final appeal of constitutional matters.

-The legislature

-The executive

-The judiciary