The 2010 United Kingdom general election took place on 6 May 2010 and saw each of Parliament's 650 constituencies return one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, was convened on 25 May at the Palace of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II. It was dissolved at the beginning of 30 March 2015, being 25 working days ahead of the 2015 general election on 7 May 2015.

The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, became the single largest party, though without an overall majority. This resulted in a hung parliament. A coalition agreement was then formed following negotiations with the Liberal Democrats and their leader Nick Clegg. John Bercow resumed his role as Speaker of the House of Commons. In September 2010, Ed Miliband won a Labour Party leadership vote to succeed Gordon Brown as permanent Leader of the Opposition.

In the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman (formerly a Labour member) resumed her role as Lord Speaker until the end of her five-year term in 2011, after which she did not seek re-election in the house. Peers elected former Crossbencher Baroness D'Souza to replace her. From the start of this Parliament the Lords were "led" by Lord Strathclyde without an absolute majority on his Conservative benches. In January 2013 he stood down and was succeeded by Lord Hill of Oareford.

Notable newcomers elected in this general election included Liz Truss, Liz Kendall, Guto Bebb, Gloria De Piero, Sajid Javid, Michael Dugher, Amber Rudd, Lisa Nandy, Damian Hinds, Anna Soubry, Heidi Alexander, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Alison McGovern, Chris Williamson, Owen Smith, Nicky Morgan, Tristram Hunt, Dan Poulter, Esther McVey, Priti Patel, Luciana Berger, Karen Bradley, Chuka Umunna, Louise Mensch, Dominic Raab, Tracey Crouch, Valerie Vaz and Caroline Lucas.

During the 2010–15 Parliament, John Bercow was the Speaker, David Cameron served as Prime Minister, and Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband served as Leader of the Opposition.

House of Commons composition (2010 and 2015)

These are graphical representations of the House of Commons showing a comparison of party strengths as it was directly after the 2010 general election and before the 2015 general election:

This table shows the number of MPs in each party: Affiliation Members After 2010 general election At dissolution of Parliament 306 302 258 256 57 56 8 8 6 6 5 5   Independent 0 4 3 3 3 302 1 1 1 1 1 101   Speaker 1 1 Total number of seats650650 Actual government majority8373 Notes: The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru sat together as a party group. Sinn Féin did not take its seats. This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time. In addition to the parties listed in the table above, the Co-operative Party was also represented in the House of Commons by Labour MPs sitting with the Labour Co-operative designation. The number of these MPs was 28 after the general election, and was 31 at dissolution.

List of MPs elected in the general election The following table is a list of MPs elected, ordered by constituency. As the constituency boundaries changed for this election, the "notional incumbent" column lists the party estimated to have won the seat at the 2005 election, had that election been conducted under the new boundaries.

Names of incumbents are listed where they stood for re-election; for details of defeated new candidates and the incumbent who stood down in those cases see individual constituency articles.

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