The Scottish Parliament is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh. The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members. The most recent general election was held on 5 May 2016, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality.
About Scottish Parliament in brief
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh. The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members. The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 5 May 2016, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality. The Scottish Parliament has the power to legislate in all areas that are not explicitly reserved to Westminster. The British Parliament retains the ability to amend the terms of reference of the Scottish Parliament, and can extend or reduce the areas in which it can make laws. The original Parliament of Scotland was the national legislature of the independent Kingdom of Scotland, and existed from the early 13th century until the Acts of Union 1707. Following a referendum in 1997, in which the Scottish electorate voted for devolution, the powers of the devolution legislature were specified by the Scotland Act 1998. The first meeting of the new Parliament took place on 12 May 1999, with some of the most significant changes being the expansion of the Parliament’s powers, especially over taxation and welfare. The Scotland Act 2012 and Scotland Act 2016 have been amended numerous times since then, most notably by the England and Wales Act of 2012 and the Northern Ireland Act of 2013. The UK Parliament is seated at Westminster and is responsible for the affairs of the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, England and Ireland. The House of Lords is the only chamber of parliament in the UK, and sits at the Westminster Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House of Commons.
The Lords are responsible for all legislation relating to Scotland, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are also responsible for setting up and enforcing the rules of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of Scotland and the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Parliament is based in Strasbourg, France, and has a seat in London, where it was established in 1973. It has a term of office of seven years, but can extend to a maximum of 18 years if it so chooses. It was established by the Treaty of Union with Great Britain in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Before 1707, Scotland had an independent parliament known as the Parliament ofScotland. After the Union, Scotland was directly governed by the parliament of England and the subsequent Parliament of the UK. In the late 1960s, a sharp rise in nationalism in Scotland fuelled demands for some form of home rule or complete independence, and in 1969 prompted the incumbent Labour government of Harold Wilson to set up the Kilbrandon Commission to consider the British constitution. In 1978, final legislative proposals for a Scottish Assembly were passed by the United UK Parliament. The 1979 Scottish Assembly proposal failed, with a majority of 51. 6% of the electorate voting in favour of Scottish devolution. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, demand for a devolved Scottish Parliament grew, because the government controlled by the Conservative Party continued to hold relatively few Conservative MPs. In 1989, the Scottish Convention provided the basis for the Devolution Convention.
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This page is based on the article Scottish Parliament published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
