House of Commons
The representative chamber of Parliament (also known as the Lower House), composed of 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected for 543 single-member constituencies in England, 57 in Scotland, 32 in Wales, and 18 in Northern Ireland (see election; franchise). The total number of MPs was fixed at 650 in 2020, but the allocation of seats between the four nations may from time to time be recalculated to reflect the proportion of the registered electorate living in each country. Constituency boundaries are also reviewed periodically by the boundary commissions and may be altered to reflect changes in population. The latest such review began in 2021 and is due to be completed in 2023.

Various categories of people are disqualified from membership. They include those under 21, civil servants, the police and the regular armed forces, aliens, those declared bankrupt, convicted prisoners and people guilty of corrupt or illegal practices, the holders of most judicial offices (but not lay magistrates), and the holders of a large number of public offices listed in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. Public offices that disqualify include stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead. The number of members who may hold ministerial office is limited to 95. The House of Lords Act 1999 removed an earlier disqualification on hereditary peers from voting and from being elected members of the House of Commons. The Removal of Clergy Disqualification Act 2001 permits clergy of all denominations to be MPs.

The House is presided over by the Speaker, who is elected from among themselves by the members at the beginning of each Parliament. The Speaker is responsible for the orderly conduct of proceedings, which must be supervised with complete impartiality, and is the person through whom the members may collectively communicate with the sovereign. The Leader of the House is a government minister responsible for arranging the business of the House in consultation with the Opposition.

• testimonium
• testimony
• textbooks
• TFEU
• thalweg, rule of the
• theft
• therapeutic privilege
• thin capitalization
• thing
• Third Party Debt Order
• third-party insurance
• third-party proceedings
• threat
• threatening behaviour
• three certainties
• three-tier system
• threshold criteria
• tidal waters
• tied cottage
• time charter
• time immemorial
• time policy
• time provisions in contracts
• timeshare lease
• title