Open Immediately!

Open Immediately!

Although the House of Commons does not formally elect the prime minister, by convention and in practice, the prime minister is answerable to the House, and therefore must maintain its support. In this way, the position of the parties in the House is of overriding importance. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the monarch appoints the person who has the support of the house, or who is most likely to command the support of the house—normally the leader of the largest party in the house—while the leader of the second-largest party becomes the leader of the Opposition. Since 1963, by convention, the prime minister has always been a member of the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly: for instance, "That this House has no confidence in His Majesty's Government." Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the government's agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence. When a government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is obliged either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election. Before 2011, Parliament sat for anything up to five years. This was a maximum: the prime minister could, and often did, choose an earlier time to dissolve parliament, with the permission of the monarch. Since the Dissolution and Calling of Parliam