How members are there in parliament?

Answer 1

The 55th Parliament of the United Kingdom is currently made up of 1,436 people, as of May 2012. Of these, there are 650 elected members sitting in the House of Commons (Members of Parliament) and 786 unelected members sitting in the House of Lords (Peers). This makes Parliament the second largest legislature in the world behind China, and the largest in the democratic world.

The exact size of Parliament changes over time. The House of Commons routinely has boundary reviews that often see new constituencies being created and old ones abolished; currently, the House of Commons must have at least 613 Members of Parliament. Since the independence of Ireland, there have always been at least 615 MPs - Parliament has gotten progressively larger since the 1930s, reaching a peak size of 659 MPs in the Commons between 1997 and 2005.

The number of members of the House of Lords fluctuates from year to year, and even from month to month or week to week. As most Peers are appointed for life, it is not uncommon for Peers to die without being replaced - similarly, when new Peers are appointed by the Prime Minister, they do not replace any sitting Peer. As a consequence, the House of Lords has, on average, gotten gradually larger since 1997.

It should be noted that the current Coalition government is proposing changes to constituency boundaries that would fix the number of MPs in the House of Commons at 600, the lowest-ever number of MPs in British history. Similarly, proposals to shrink the House of Lords to a chamber of 300 elected members are being considered. This would reduce the total number of parliamentarians to 900. This would mean the UK Parliament would be only the third largest in the world, behind Italy's 952 member legislature.