What Is a Vote of No Confidence? How It Works in the UK

A vote of no confidence is a vote in the House of Commons on whether MPs still support the government. In the UK system a government can stay in office only while it has the confidence of the Commons. If it loses a confidence vote, it is expected either to resign, so that someone else can try to form a government, or to ask for Parliament to be dissolved and a general election held. Only MPs can bring about such a vote; the public cannot trigger one directly.

How a confidence vote works in the Commons

A government can lose confidence in two ways: through a formal confidence motion, or by concluding for itself that it no longer has the backing of the House, for example after losing a vote on a central part of its programme.

Formal motions come in two forms:

• A vote of no confidence, tabled by the official opposition. The traditional wording is "That this House has no confidence in His Majesty's Government." The opposition can also amend an existing government motion to the same effect.
• A vote of confidence, tabled by the government itself to show that it still commands a majority. A government can also declare that a particular vote, such as a vote on a key bill, is a "matter of confidence".

By convention, the government gives a no confidence motion from the official opposition priority for debate and a vote. In January 2019 such a motion was debated the day after it was tabled. Smaller parties can table confidence motions too, but there is no convention that the government must find time for them, and they usually reach a vote only if the official opposition supports them.

Some votes carry an implied test of confidence. Losing a big set-piece vote, such as the vote on the King's Speech or on the Budget, would suggest that the government had lost the confidence of the House, although it would probably be followed by an explicit confidence vote unless the government chose to resign or seek an election anyway.

A confidence motion tests the government as a whole. Motions aimed at a single minister, including the prime minister, are not given the same priority. Opposition parties can use their own allotted debating days to force a vote on one, and censure motions can be tabled, but the government is not obliged to schedule them.

What happens if the government loses

The government has two choices. It can resign, allowing an alternative government to take office if one can command a majority, or it can seek a dissolution and a general election. Today an election is considered the more likely route.

Since 2022, dissolving Parliament has again been a prerogative power of the Crown, as it was before 2011. A Parliament that is not dissolved earlier ends automatically on the fifth anniversary of the day it first met.

Successful no confidence motions have generally come when a government's slim majority had been eroded by by-elections or defections. That is why confidence votes matter most in a hung parliament, where no party has a majority on its own.

The 1979 defeat by one vote

The most recent time a UK government lost a confidence vote was on 28 March 1979. The Leader of the Opposition tabled the motion "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government", and the Callaghan government lost by 311 votes to 310. The result was announced at 10.19pm.

The prime minister chose an election rather than resignation. Parliament was dissolved on 7 April 1979 and the general election took place on 3 May 1979. Before 1979, the last time the Commons had forced an election in this way was in 1924.

Date of defeat	What followed
1895	The government resigned
January 1924	The government resigned
October 1924	The government sought a dissolution and an election
March 1979	The government sought a dissolution; general election on 3 May 1979

Most no confidence motions fail. Party discipline usually allows a government with a majority to defeat them. The motion tabled in January 2019, for example, was defeated by 325 votes to 306.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and its repeal

For just over a decade the rules were written into law. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which received royal assent on 15 September 2011, set general elections for a fixed date every five years. An early election could happen in only two ways:

1. if two-thirds of all MPs, including vacant seats, voted for one; or
2. if the Commons passed a motion in the exact words "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government" and no new government won a confidence motion within 14 days.

The 2017 general election came about through the first route: on 19 April 2017 the Commons voted 522 to 13 for an early election, held on 8 June. In 2019 attempts to use the two-thirds route failed, and Parliament instead passed a separate Act, the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, which set polling day for 12 December 2019.

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, which received royal assent on 24 March 2022, repealed the 2011 Act. It revived the prerogative powers to dissolve Parliament and call a new one, made the use of those powers non-justiciable, meaning the courts cannot review it, and provided for automatic dissolution after five years. The effect was to restore the older system, in which a government that clearly loses the confidence of the Commons is strongly expected to resign or call an election, rather than following a statutory 14-day procedure.

Government confidence votes and party leader confidence votes

The phrase "confidence vote" is also used for something quite different: a vote inside a political party on whether to keep its leader.

• A Commons confidence vote is a formal vote of the whole House. It decides whether the government can continue.
• A party confidence vote is an internal matter governed by the party's own rules. Only the party's members, often just its MPs, take part. If the leader loses, the party chooses a new leader. When that party is in government, the new leader can become prime minister without a general election.

Each party sets its own procedure. In the Conservative Party, for example, a confidence vote in the leader is triggered when 15% of the party's MPs write to the chair of the party's 1922 Committee asking for one. Such votes were held in 2003, 2018 and 2022: the leader lost the first and survived the other two. None of these was a vote of the House of Commons, and none could by itself remove a government.

Can the public force a vote of no confidence?

No. A confidence motion can only be tabled and voted on by MPs. Members of the public who want one can lobby their MP or opposition parties, but there is no mechanism that lets voters trigger a Commons confidence vote. Two tools are sometimes confused with one:

Parliamentary petitions

People can start or sign a petition on the UK Parliament website. At 10,000 signatures the government responds in writing. At 100,000 signatures the petition is considered for a debate by the Petitions Committee, a group of 11 MPs. These debates do not end with a vote on whether to do what the petition asks, so a petition cannot force a confidence vote or bring down a government.

Recall petitions

The Recall of MPs Act 2015 lets constituents remove their own MP, not the government. A recall petition opens only after specific triggers: a custodial sentence, a conviction for making false or misleading expenses claims, or a suspension from the Commons of at least 10 sitting days or 14 calendar days following a committee report. The Speaker starts the process. The petition is open for six weeks, and if at least 10% of registered voters in the constituency sign, the seat becomes vacant and a by-election follows, in which the recalled MP may stand.