Government

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a queen and two chambers of parliament: the House of Lords, which has 574 life peers, 92 hereditary peers, and 26 bishops, and the House of Commons, which has 651 members who were elected by the people. Parliament has supreme legislative authority and sits for five years unless dissolved earlier. The union between England and Wales, begun in 1284 with the Statute of Rhuddlan, was not formalised until 1536 with an Act of Union; England and Scotland agreed to permanently join as Great Britain in another Act of Union in 1707; and the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in 1801, with the Act of Union.

Living Standards

The United Kingdom has usually high living standards. Environmental quality, community, health condition, jobs, and learning are all above average in the OECD Better Life Index. Employees, on the other hand, work longer hours than the OECD average.

Education

While literacy levels in the UK are typically excellent, a number of recent investigations have indicated that more people struggle to read and write than previously assumed.

Literacy Trust, a British group, discovered that 7.1 million adults in England, as well as 931,00 in Scotland, 216,000 in Wales, and 550,000 in Northern Ireland, had extremely low literacy abilities.

Primary education (for children aged four to eleven), secondary education (for children aged eleven to sixteen), and higher or further education make up the UK educational system. It is a legal necessity for children to attend school until they reach the age of eighteen.