Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Housing – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 1 Mai 1947.
Mr Aneurin Bevan
, Ebbw Vale
12:00,
1 Mai 1947
The answers to the first two parts of the Question are, as I am informed, 8,064 and 5,618 respectively; legal proceedings were instituted in 177 cases; in the Majority of the remaining cases of non-compliance warning letters were effective.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
