Question 1

What is the difference between an MP, a councillor and a mayor?

Accepted Answer

They operate at different levels of government with different powers, and people frequently contact the wrong one.

**An MP — Member of Parliament.** Elected to the House of Commons to represent a **constituency** in national government.

**What they do:** vote on legislation, scrutinise government, sit on select committees, and represent constituents' interests nationally. They hold **surgeries** where constituents raise problems.

**What they can help with:** matters that are the responsibility of central government or national bodies — immigration and visas, HMRC, benefits and DWP, passports, NHS policy, and pressing agencies on a constituent's behalf. An MP writing to a department frequently produces movement where an individual cannot.

**What they cannot help with:** local council matters. An MP has no authority over bin collections, planning applications or local road repairs — and the convention is that MPs do not take up cases for people outside their own constituency.

**A councillor.** Elected to a **local authority**, representing a **ward**.

**What they do:** set local policy and budgets, decide planning applications through committees, and hold council services to account.

**What they can help with:** the things that actually affect daily life — housing, planning, licensing, waste, potholes, parking, schools admissions, social care, environmental health, and antisocial behaviour.

**Note the two-tier complication.** In much of England, responsibilities are split between a **district or borough council** and a **county council**, and knowing which handles what is genuinely confusing. Broadly, districts handle housing, planning and waste collection; counties handle education, social care, highways and libraries. **Unitary authorities** do everything.

**A mayor** — and there are two very different kinds:

**A ceremonial mayor**, chosen by fellow councillors, chairing meetings and performing civic duties. Largely symbolic, with no executive power.

**A directly elected mayor**, with genuine executive authority — either for a single authority or, as a **combined authority or metro mayor**, across a region with powers over transport, housing, skills and economic development.

**Devolved parliaments** add another layer in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Question 2

How are local councils actually structured, and what do they do?

Accepted Answer

Differently in different places — which is the honest starting point, because the UK has several parallel structures and knowing which applies to you determines who is responsible for what. The

Question 3

What does the Speaker do, and what is a whip?

Accepted Answer

One enforces the rules impartially; the other enforces party discipline ruthlessly. They are the two figures most visible in Commons procedure and they work in opposite directions. The Speaker. The

Question 4

What is the ministerial code, and who enforces it?

Accepted Answer

A document setting out the standards of conduct expected of ministers — and the answer to who enforces it is the source of the persistent criticism: the Prime Minister, who is also bound by it. What

Question 5

What is a by-election, and what is a recall petition?

Accepted Answer

A by-election fills a single vacant parliamentary seat between general elections; a recall petition is the mechanism by which constituents can trigger one where their MP has met specified conditions.

Question 6

What is a private member's bill, and do any become law?

Accepted Answer

A bill introduced by an MP or peer who is not a government minister — and a small number do become law, though the mechanisms that allow it are narrow and easily obstructed. The three routes in the

Question 7

What is the House of Lords for?

Accepted Answer

The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament. Its central function is revision and scrutiny — examining legislation in detail and asking the Commons to think again — rather than

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