This is a list of

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MPs) elected in the 1979 general election, held on 3 May. This Parliament was dissolved in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, which consists of the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

and the elected House of Commons, was convened on Tuesday 15 May 1979 at the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

Of the 77 newcomers, two were women (

Sheila Faith Irene Sheila Faith (née Book; 3 June 1928 – 28 September 2014) was a British politician and dental surgeon. She served one term each in the House of Commons and European Parliament as a Conservative. She was a native of Newcastle upon Tyne an ...

and Sheila Wright). In total, the Parliament had 19 female members (8 Conservative, 11 Labour), fewer than any post-war parliament before or since, with the sole exception of 1951. It was the election from which

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

, the incumbent

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

leader became

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

, the first female head of government in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Composition

These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1979 general election. House of Commons elected members, 1979

Note: The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru sit together as a party group. This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the Speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time. __NOTOC__

By-elections

See the

list of United Kingdom by-elections The list of by-elections in the United Kingdom is divided chronologically by parliament: Parliament of the United Kingdom *List of United Kingdom by-elections (1801–1806) * List of United Kingdom by-elections (1806–1818) *List of United Kingd ...

. Two seats were vacant when Parliament was dissolved preparatory to the 1983 general election: *Cardiff, North-West – Michael Roberts (Con) died 10 February 1983 *Rhondda –

Alec Jones Trevor Alec Jones (12 August 1924 – 20 March 1983) was a British Labour Party politician. Jones was born in Clydach Vale and educated at Rhondda Boys' Grammar School. After obtaining a teaching qualification at Bangor Normal College, he tau ...

(Lab) died 20 March 1983

References

{{1979 United Kingdom general election

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

1979 United Kingdom general election Lists of UK MPs 1979–1983 List

UK MPs Following is a (currently incomplete) list of past United Kingdom MPs in alphabetical order. __NOTOC__ A ''See List of United Kingdom MPs: A'' B ''See List of United Kingdom MPs: B'' C ''See List of United Kingdom MPs: C'' D ''See Lis ...