The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty conferring it ultimate power over all other Political bodies. At its head is the Sovereign, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The parliament is bicameral, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. The Queen is the third component of Parliament. The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual (the senior bishops of the Church of England) and the Lords Temporal (members of the Peerage); its members are not elected by the population at large but are appointed by past or current governments. 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 the City of Westminster 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 legistlature.
Parliament evolved from the early medieval councils that advised the sovereigns of England. In theory, supreme legislative power is vested in the Queen-in-Parliament; in practice in modern times, real power is vested in the House of Commons; the Sovereign generally acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and the powers of the House of Lords are limited.
The United Kingdom Parliament is sometimes called the "Mother of Parliaments", as the legislative bodies of many states, most notably those of the members of the Commonwealth, are modelled on it. However, it is a misquotation of John Bright, who had actually remarked on 18 January 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments", in the context of supporting demands for expanded voting rights in a country that he considered had pioneered parliamentary government.