What is a hung parliament?
The nutshell
Sometimes no single party wins enough seats to be in charge on its own. That is called a hung parliament. The parties then have to agree who will run the country.
Everything on this page comes from independent, non-partisan researchers. Every source tag — like IfG — opens where a fact comes from.
The basics
What a hung parliament is
MPs are the people who make laws in Parliament. There are 650 MPs. To run the government alone, a party needs more than half of those seats — that is 326.FF A hung parliament is when no single party reaches that number.IfG
What can happen next
After a hung parliament, the parties talk to work out who can win the most important votes in the Commons, like votes on money and laws.CU There are three main outcomes.
A coalition is when two or more parties join together to reach a majority and govern as a team.IfG
A confidence and supply deal is when a smaller party agrees to support a larger one on key votes, like the budget, without fully joining the government.FF
A minority government is when the largest party governs alone, without a majority, and has to win support vote by vote.IfG
Real examples
This has happened after recent UK general elections. In 2010, no party won a majority. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition and governed together.CU
In 2017, no party won a majority again. The Conservatives won the most seats — 317 — and governed as a minority. The party then made a confidence and supply deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, known as the DUP.FF
- Forces parties to cooperate and compromise
- More than one party must agree on a plan
- A wider range of voters gets a say
- A government can take days or weeks to form
- Deals are struck between parties, not voted on directly
- A minority government can struggle to pass laws
The deep end6 min
Who gets to form the government
No single rule says the largest party governs after a hung parliament. The party that forms a government is the one that can command the confidence of the House of Commons. That means it can win the votes that keep a government in office, such as the budget.CU The prime minister in office before the election stays until it is clear which party can do this.IfG
How the numbers work
A majority means more than half of the 650 seats, which is 326. In practice, a government can manage with slightly fewer. A few MPs do not vote — the Speaker stays neutral, and Sinn Féin MPs do not sit in the Commons — so Full Fact puts a working majority at about 320.FF
How long it can take
Forming a government after a hung parliament can be quick or slow. In 2010, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition was agreed in five days. In 2017, the confidence and supply deal with the DUP took 17 days.CU
The debate about hung parliaments
Whether a hung parliament is good or bad is a matter of debate, not a settled fact. The arguments turn on a few clear trade-offs.
One trade-off is speed against breadth. A single party with a majority can pass its plans quickly. A coalition or a confidence and supply deal needs more than one party to agree first, which takes longer but spreads the decision across more MPs.IfG
Another trade-off is how the terms are set. In a coalition or a confidence and supply deal, the details are agreed between parties after the election, rather than put to voters beforehand.CU