House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975
Public General Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 (c. 24) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that prohibits certain categories of people from becoming members of the House of Commons. It is an updated version of similar older acts, known collectively by the stock short title House of Commons Disqualification Act.
Provisions
Disqualification
The groups disqualified from membership of the House of Commons for all constituencies are:
Lords Spiritual
judges
civil servants
serving regular members of the armed forces, except Admirals of the Fleet, Field Marshals and Marshals of the Royal Air Force
full-time police constables
members of legislatures of non-Commonwealth countries, other than Ireland
holders of certain administrative and diplomatic offices
all members of certain bodies, such as tribunals and government departments, plus some statutory corporations such as Channel 4
Lords-lieutenant and high sheriffs are also disqualified from seats for constituencies within their area.
The election to the Commons of a disqualified person is invalid, and the seat of an MP who becomes disqualified is vacated immediately (triggering a by-election).
The Privy Council has jurisdiction to determine whether a purported MP is disqualified; the issue may be tried in the High Court, Court of Session or High Court of Northern Ireland as appropriate for the constituency.
Section 4 of the act adds the offices of steward or bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead, only for the purposes of the vacation of a seat in the House of Commons. These offices are sinecures, used in modern times to effect resignation from the House of Commons. Prior to 1926, this disqualification was due to them being "offices of profit under the Crown", but that disqualification was abolished in 1926 and by s. 1(4) of this act.
The public source identifies “House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975” as public General Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around House, Commons and Disqualification.
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This entry incorporates text from “House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.