The UK Parliament

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as the British Parliament, the Westminster Parliamen.

The parliament is big, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons.

 The House of Lords combine two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual (the senior bishops of the Church of England) and the Lords Temporal  whose members are not elected by the population at large, but are appointed by the Sovereign on advice of the Prime Minister. Prior to the opening of the Supreme Court in October 2009 the House of Lords also performed a judicial role through the Law Lords.

The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber with elections to it held at least every 5 years. ^] The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the Houses of Parliament), in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or, less often, the House of Lords, and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature.