• Research Briefing

    London Elections 2016

    Elections for the London Mayor and London Assembly were held on 5 May 2016. The Labour Party candidate Sadiq Khan was elected as Mayor of London with the highest number and share of first preference votes since mayoral elections began in 2000. Labour won 12 of the 25 seats in the London Assembly, the Conservatives 8, the Green Party and UKIP 2 seats each and the Liberal Democrats one seat. Turnout in the mayoral election was 45.2%.

  • Research Briefing

    Higher Education White Paper Success as a Knowledge Economy

    In November 2015 the government published a Green Paper Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice which outlined proposals to reshape the HE landscape, raise standards and increase competition in the sector. The White Paper echoes the proposals in the Green Paper and proposes creating: a single route into the HE sector, the Teaching and Excellence Framework, the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation.

  • Research Briefing

    Local Elections 2016

    Local elections were held for 2,782 council seats across 124 district, unitary and metropolitan borough councils in England on 5 May 2016. In the elections the Conservatives had a net loss of 38 seats, Labour a net loss of 15 seats and the Liberal Democrats a net gain of 48 seats. Changes in council control across England were minimal.

  • Research Briefing

    Police and Crime Commissioner Elections: 2016

    On Thursday 5 May 2016 the second cycle of elections (2012 being the first) for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) took place in England and Wales (excluding the Metropolitan Police, City of London and Greater Manchester). The 40 police areas each elected one PCC. The supplementary vote system was used for the elections.

  • Research Briefing

    Brexit and the UN Security Council

    This Commons Library briefing paper looks at the competing arguments about the possible effects of leaving the EU on the UK's permanent membership of the UN Security Council. The UK is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Would leaving the EU strengthen the UK’s position in the UN, have no direct effect, or result in a loss of legitimacy for the UN? What if it resulted in Scotland leaving the UK? Views differ; but the difficulty of amending the UN Charter makes any change to the permanent membership of the Security Council unlikely.

  • Research Briefing

    A British Bill of Rights?

    The Conservative Party went into the 2015 General Election with a manifesto commitment to “scrap the Human Rights Act and curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights.” This note provides a brief introduction to the Human Rights Act 1998; the European Convention on Human Rights and the work of the European Court of Human Rights.

  • Research Briefing

    Queen’s Speech 2016

    This Commons Library Briefing Paper identifies issues and bills that may appear in the Queen’s Speech, which will outline the Government's legislative programme for the 2016-17 Session of Parliament.

  • Research Briefing

    Calls to change overseas domestic worker visa conditions

    An independent review of the conditions attached to domestic worker visas recommended reinstating the right to change employer and apply for further leave to remain (but not permanent settlement) for all migrant domestic workers in the UK. The Government disagrees with the recommendation. It has introduced more limited rights for domestic workers to change employer and extend their stay in the UK, which are more focused towards victims of trafficking or slavery.

  • Research Briefing

    Changes to criminal legal aid

    On 28 January 2016 the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove, told the House of Commons that his department would no longer pursue the introduction of the ‘dual contracting’ scheme for the provision of criminal litigation services in England and Wales. He also announced the suspension of a second reduction in solicitors’ fees. The change in policy ended the long-running dispute between the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the legal profession over changes to criminal legal aid.