Opposition parties in the House of Commons

The UK Parliament has traditionally been dominated by two main parties, which since the end of the Second World War have been the Conservative and Labour parties. In recent decades, Parliament has typically seen a third party take a significant number of seats, as well as a range of parties taking a small number of seats. These smaller parties include parties from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as parties that stand candidates across Great Britain.

While the party with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons typically forms the government, the second largest party is known as the Official Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition and their spokespeople have certain rights under parliamentary procedure, such as:

• the right to set business on 17 opposition days each session
• by convention, the right to parliamentary time to bring a motion of no confidence in the government
• precedence in asking questions to ministers and speaking at debates
• by convention, the right to ask six supplementary questions at Prime Minister’s Questions, as well as the right for Shadow ministers to ask supplementary questions to ministers during Question Time

The leader of the second largest opposition party also has some rights under parliamentary procedure, such as the right to ask two supplementary questions at Prime Minister’s Questions and the right to set business on 3 opposition days.

Qualifying opposition parties can receive public funding in the form of Short Money and Policy Development Grants. Short Money is paid for three purposes:

• for assisting opposition parties to carry out their parliamentary business
• for opposition parties’ travel and associated expenses
• for the running costs of the Leader of the Opposition’s office

Policy Development Grants are paid to assist opposition parties in developing policies to include in their election manifestos. Sinn Féin MPs are not eligible for Short Money or Policy Development Grants, as they do not take the oath of allegiance nor take their seats in the House of Commons. However, since 2006 a scheme has operated on similar terms to Short Money to allow Sinn Féin MPs to access funds to carry out ‘representative business’.