In order to give people in Wales and Scotland more control of matters that directly affect
them, in 1997 the government began a programme of devolving power from central
government. Since 1999 there has been a Welsh Assembly, a Scottish Parliament, and,
periodically, a Northern Ireland Assembly. Although policy and laws governing defence,
foreign affairs, taxation and social security all remain under central UK government
control, many other public services now come under the control of the devolved
administrations in Wales and Scotland.

Both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have been set up using forms of
proportional representation which ensures that each party gets a number of seats in
proportion to the number of votes they receive. Similarly, proportional representation is
used in Northern Ireland in order to ensure “power sharing” between the Unionist
majority (mainly Protestant) and the substantial (mainly Catholic) minority aligned to
Irish nationalist parties. A different form of proportional representation is used for
elections to the European Parliament.

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