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) ^[1].

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.

Ireland

In Ireland, the term Member of Parliament can refer to the members of the pre-1801 Irish House of Commons of the Parliament of Ireland. It can also refer to Irish members elected to the British House of Commons from 1801 to 1922.

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).

Pakistan

Pakistan's MP refers to the member of Parliament (National Assembly of Pakistan, Qaumi Assembly). The National Assembly is based in Islamabad.

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]

Notes

^ 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..

Private correspondence from the Queensland Parliamentary Library, 15 November 2005 Wikipedian Alex Law.

[1] 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..

[1]