This paper provides a summary of statistics about Parliament. It brings together figures about both the House of Commons and Lords; their membership and activities.
The aim is to provide comparisons over time, though periods may vary according to relevance and the availability of consistent data. Some are for parliamentary sessions (a parliamentary session begins each year with the Queen’s Speech) some by calendar year and some by financial year. This should be borne in mind when comparing different sets of information.
Elections to the European Parliament were held across the 27 states of the European Union between 4 and 7 June 2009.
The UK elections were held concurrently with the county council elections in England on 4 June. The UK now has 72 MEPs, down from 78 at the last election, distributed between 12 regions.
The Conservatives won 25 seats, both UKIP and Labour 13 and the Liberal Democrats 11. The Green Party held their two seats, while the BNP won their first two seats in the European parliament. Labour lost five seats compared with the comparative pre-election position.
The Conservatives won the popular vote overall, and every region in Great Britain except the North East, where Labour won, and Scotland, where the SNP won. UKIP won more votes than Labour. UK turnout was 34.5%.
Across Europe, centre-right parties, whether in power or opposition, tended to perform better than those on the centre-left. The exact political balance of the new Parliament depends on the formation of Groups. The UK was not alone in seeing gains for far-right and nationalistic parties.
Turnout across the EU was 43%. It was particularly low in some of the newer Member States.
Part 1 of this paper presents the full results of the UK elections, including regional analysis and local-level data.
Part 2 presents summary results of the results across the EU, together with country-level summaries based on data from official national sources.
This note lists UK Parliament seats by marginality using results for the 2005 General Election. Majorities are measured by both numbers of votes and shares of the vote inpercentage points.
