Member of Parliament
A
Member of Parliament, or
MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a
parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title such as
Senate and thus unique titles for its members ("
Senators" etc).
Australia
In
Australia, the term
Member of Parliament refers to the
Australian House of Representatives, and in some jurisdictions it also refers to members of the State Parliament.
*
Queensland Members of the Legislative Assembly, the
unicameral (single house)
Parliament of Queensland were known as
Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) until 2001 and are now known as
Members of Parliament (MPs)
[It was resolved at a meeting (19/10/2000) of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Qld branch) that Members of the Legislative Assembly should be known as MP rather than MLA.. ].
Canada
In
Canada, the term
Member of Parliament refers specifically to a member of the
Canadian House of Commons.
India
In
India, the term
Member of Parliament refers to the
Sansad or the
Indian Parliament chambers of the
Lok Sabha or the
Rajya Sabha.MPs to the
Lok Sabha are elected popularly by constentuencies in the Indian states and union territories, while MPs to the
Rajya Sabha are elected by State legislatures. Central government is formed by the party having maximum number of MPs in
Lok Sabha. Each state has a fixed number to MPs to be selected. The Indian state,
Uttar Pradesh represents maximum number of MPs in the
Lok Sabha.
Malaysia
The
Malaysian Parliament is modeled after the
Parliament of the United Kingdom and consists of two houses, known as the
Dewan Rakyat which is the
House of Representatives and
Dewan Negara or the
Senate.
The members of the
Dewan Rakyat are elected in
general elections or
by-elections, whereas the members of the
Dewan Negara are appointed by the king, in recognition of outstanding service to their country, or chosen by the states. Each state appoints a number of senators proportionate to its size.
Currently, the
Dewan Negara has 70 seats while the
Dewan Rakyat has 219. Of the 219 seats in the
Dewan Rakyat, as of 2006, 199 are held by the ruling
Barisan Nasional and 20 by
opposition parties.
Members of Parliament are styled
Yang Berhormat ("Honourable") with the initials
Y.B. appended
prenominally. A
prince who is a Member of Parliament is
Yang Berhormat Mulia.
New Zealand
New Zealand has a single-chambered (
unicameral) parliament. In New Zealand
Member of Parliament is the term for a member of the
New Zealand House of Representatives, although parliament technically consists of both the House and the
Queen. The New Zealand House of Representatives normally has 120 MPs, elected every three years. There are 69 electorate (constituency) MPs, 7 of whom are elected by
Māori who have chosen to vote in special
Māori seats. The remaining 51 MPs are elected from party lists. The speaker of the house is
Margaret Wilson.
Before
1951 New Zealand had a two-chambered (
bicameral) parliament, and there were two designations — MHR (Member of the House of Representatives, the body which survives today) and MLC (Member of the
Legislative Council).
Singapore
In
Singapore, the
Members of Parliament refers to either the elected members of the
Parliament of Singapore, the appointed
Non-Constituency Members of Parliament from the opposition, as well as the
Nominated Members of Parliament, who may be appointed from members of the public who have no connection to any political party in Singapore.
Sweden
In
Sweden, a
Member of Parliament refers to an elected member of the
Riksdag (Swedish parliament).
United Kingdom
The
United Kingdom has members of three different parliaments:
Members of Parliament (which refers to members of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom, abbreviated to
MP(
s) but only in reference to members of the (lower)
House of Commons)
Members of the European Parliament
(MEPs
)
*Members of the Scottish Parliament
(MSPs
) (Elected members of the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland were called Commissioners''.)
Note 1: The Welsh Assembly does not have the powers to make primary legislation and forms the Welsh Assembly Government which unusually combined legislative and executive functions [
1].The National Assembly consists of 60 elected members, they use the title Assembly Member (AM) or Aelod y Cynulliad (AC).
Note 2 : The Northern Ireland Assembly's 108 members are elected from 18 six-member constituencies on the basis of universal adult suffrage. The constituencies used are the same as those used for elections to the Westminster Parliament. Elected members are known as Members of the Legislative Assembly [MLA]. The Assembly has authority to legislate in a field of competences known as "transferred matters" [
2]. These matters are not explicitly enumerated in the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Rather they include any competence not explicitly retained by the Parliament at Westminster. Uniquely, Assembly legislation is open to judicial review.
MPs in the
House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are elected in
general elections and
by-elections to represent
constituencies by the
first-past-the-post system of election, and may remain MPs until Parliament is dissolved. (Parliaments can last up to five years.) The members of the
House of Lords are officially appointed by the
Monarch, but the selection is actually done by an independent appointments commission, who receive nominations from the Prime Minister among others.
There are several special members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, other government ministers, the
Chief Whip of each party,
Privy Counsellors, and the
Speaker of the House.
Members of Parliament are technically forbidden to resign their seats. They either die, or take advantage of the rule that appointment to a "paid office under the Crown" disqualifies an MP from sitting in the Commons, and two nominally paid offices - the
Chiltern Hundreds and the
Manor of Northstead - exist to allow members to resign from the House. For more information, see the article
Resignation from the British House of Commons.
The basic salary of an MP in the House of Commons was increased to £59,686 per annum on
1 April 2006 and will rise to £60,277 on
1 November 2006. Many MPs (ministers, the speaker, senior opposition leaders etc) receive a supplementary salary for their specific responsibilities. As of the
1 April 2006 increment these range from £25,255 for
junior whips to £126,085 for the
Prime Minister. [
3]
Private correspondence from the Queensland Parliamentary Library,
15 November 2005 Wikipedian Alex Law.
