G
Government: The most successful party in an election gets to form the Government, which takes charge of important areas of policy, and puts forward new bills based on their policy ideas.
H
Holyrood: This is where the Scottish Parliament is permanently based. It is at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. “Holyrood” is often used to mean the same as the Scottish Parliament.
I
Ideology: An ideology is a set of ideas about how the country should be run. Each political party in the Parliament has its own ideology. This will help them to decide about the policies that they want the Parliament to put into place.
J
K
L
Laws: These are rules deciding what can and can’t be done in a country. The Scottish Parliament can pass laws on devolved matters.
Legislation: the process of making new laws.
Local government: the organisation who looks after peoples’ interests at local level. This is usually referred to as the local Council. Councillors are elected to represent a ward in the council area. They are elected using the single transferrable vote system.
Lords, House of: the upper house in the UK Parliament. People who sit in the House of Lords are not elected.