Chapter 1: The values and principles of the UK
The short opening chapter: what the UK says it stands for, and what you agree to when you settle here.
- The book gives five fundamental principles of British life: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, participation in community life and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
- Looking after yourself and your family is a responsibility, not a principle. The others are obeying the law, respecting the rights of others, treating others fairly and looking after your area and the environment.
- If you want to be a permanent resident or citizen you agree to respect the law, and the rights and values of others.
- At a citizenship ceremony you swear or affirm allegiance to the monarch, and pledge loyalty to the United Kingdom.
- The oath of allegiance is sworn on a holy book; people who prefer not to swear on one make an affirmation instead, which has exactly the same legal effect.
- Citizenship ceremonies are usually arranged by the local council and normally take place within three months of your application being approved.
- To apply for citizenship or permanent residence you must speak English and understand life in the UK, which is why the test exists.
- The book lists five freedoms: freedom of belief and religion, freedom of speech, freedom from unfair discrimination, a right to a fair trial and a right to join in electing a government.
- Everyone in the UK is equal before the law, whatever their background.
- The UK is a parliamentary democracy with the monarch as head of state.
Ways to remember it
- Five principles to know: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, tolerance of other faiths and beliefs, and taking part in community life.
Chapter 2: What is the UK?
The shortest chapter in the book, and an easy one to skip. It's four countries and their capitals, and it's as much a part of the test as any other chapter.
- The United Kingdom is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Great Britain refers only to England, Scotland and Wales. It does not include Northern Ireland.
- The capital of the UK is London. Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, Cardiff of Wales, and Belfast of Northern Ireland.
- The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are Crown dependencies. They are not part of the UK.
- Crown dependencies have their own governments and are self-governing, though the UK is responsible for their defence and foreign affairs.
- The UK is governed by the parliament sitting in London.
- Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also have their own devolved governments with varying powers.
- The official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Ways to remember it
- Great Britain is three countries. The UK is four: add Northern Ireland, which is right there in the full name.
Chapter 3: A long and illustrious history
By far the biggest chapter, with the most dates to learn. Stone Age Britain through to the end of the twentieth century.
- Britain was permanently separated from the continent by the Channel about 10,000 years ago.
- Stonehenge stands on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire and was probably a place of ceremony or seasonal gathering.
- Skara Brae on Orkney is the best preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe.
- Julius Caesar led an unsuccessful Roman invasion in 55 BC.
- The Romans successfully invaded in AD 43 under the emperor Claudius, and stayed for about 400 years.
- Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, led a revolt against the Romans and is commemorated by a statue on Westminster Bridge in London.
- Hadrian's Wall was built on the orders of the emperor Hadrian to keep out the Picts of what is now Scotland.
- The Romans left Britain in AD 410 to defend other parts of their empire, and never returned.
- Anglo-Saxons from northern Europe settled in Britain after the Romans left, and the kingdoms they founded gave England its name.
- The burial site at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk is thought to be the grave of an Anglo-Saxon king, buried with his ship and treasure.
- Viking raids began in AD 789, and some Vikings later stayed and settled.
- In 1066 William of Normandy defeated Harold, the Saxon king, at the Battle of Hastings and became king of England.
- The Battle of Hastings is shown in the Bayeux Tapestry, which still hangs in France.
- The Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 and recorded who owned what land across England.
- The Norman Conquest of 1066 was the last successful foreign invasion of England.
- Christianity reached Britain in the third and fourth centuries AD, and missionaries later spread it further, including St Augustine and St Columba.
Ways to remember it
- Both Roman dates start with 4: in AD 43, out AD 410.
- 1066 and 1086 are twenty years apart: the Conquest, then the Domesday Book listing what had been conquered.
- Magna Carta was signed by King John in 1215 and limited the power of the monarch by law.
- Magna Carta means 'the Great Charter' in Latin.
- The Hundred Years War between England and France lasted 116 years, despite its name.
- At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 Henry V's much smaller army defeated the French.
- The Black Death reached Britain in 1348 and killed around a third of the population of England.
- The Black Death caused such a shortage of labour that surviving peasants could demand better pay, weakening the feudal system.
- The Wars of the Roses were fought between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
- The Lancastrian emblem was a red rose and the Yorkist emblem a white rose.
- The Wars of the Roses ended at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.
- Henry Tudor won at Bosworth, became Henry VII, and founded the House of Tudor.
- The Tudor rose, red with a white centre, combined the two emblems after Henry VII married Elizabeth of York.
- In 1284 Wales was annexed to England by the Statute of Rhuddlan.
- Robert the Bruce defeated the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and Scotland remained independent.
- The first parliaments of this period were summoned by the king to help him govern, and were made up of nobles, bishops and later representatives of the towns.
- Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, a collection of poems about pilgrims travelling to Canterbury.
Ways to remember it
- Bannockburn (1314) and Agincourt (1415) are about a century apart. Scotland beat England at the first, England beat France at the second.
- The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years. The name is a round number, the war wasn't.
- Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome so he could divorce his first wife, and made himself head of the Church of England.
- Wales was formally united with England by the Act for the Government of Wales in 1536, under Henry VIII.
- Henry VIII had six wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
- Two of Henry VIII's wives were executed: Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
- Catherine Parr outlived Henry VIII.
- Henry VIII was succeeded by his son Edward VI, who was strongly Protestant.
- Mary I, who followed Edward VI, was a devout Catholic and persecuted Protestants.
- Elizabeth I, Henry VIII's daughter, reigned from 1558 to 1603 and re-established the Church of England.
- The Spanish Armada, a fleet sent by Philip II of Spain to invade England, was defeated in 1588.
- William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and wrote plays including Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
- Mary, Queen of Scots was a Catholic cousin of Elizabeth I. She fled to England, was imprisoned, and was eventually executed.
- When Elizabeth I died childless in 1603 her cousin James VI of Scotland became James I of England, uniting the crowns.
- The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was an attempt by Guy Fawkes and others to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and is remembered every 5 November.
- The English Civil War began in 1642 between the Cavaliers, who supported the king, and the Roundheads, who supported parliament.
- Charles I was executed in 1649, and England became a republic called the Commonwealth.
- Oliver Cromwell was made Lord Protector and ruled until his death.
- The monarchy was restored in 1660 when Charles II was invited back to the throne.
- The Great Plague struck London in 1665, and the Great Fire of London followed in 1666.
- The King James Bible, an English translation still in use, was produced during the reign of James I.
Ways to remember it
- Henry VIII's wives in order of what happened to them: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.
- The crowns unite in 1603 and the Gunpowder Plot fails in 1605, two years later.
- In 1688 Protestant nobles invited William of Orange to take the throne from the Catholic James II.
- William landed with an army, James II fled to France, and the change of monarch became known as the Glorious Revolution because it happened without significant fighting in England.
- William of Orange ruled jointly with his wife Mary, James II's daughter, as William III and Mary II.
- The Bill of Rights of 1689 confirmed that the monarch must have the consent of parliament to raise taxes or keep an army.
- From this point parliament had to be summoned regularly and elections had to be held, which is the beginning of constitutional monarchy.
- The Act of Union of 1707 joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain with a single parliament.
- In 1801 Ireland was joined with Great Britain, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
- The Union Flag, often called the Union Jack, combines the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick.
- Wales is not represented in the Union Flag because it was already united with England when the flag was first created.
- The flag of Wales shows a red dragon.
- Supporters of James II and his descendants were called Jacobites.
- The Jacobite rising led by Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
- After Culloden the Highland clans lost much of their power, and many Highlanders were later cleared from their land in what became known as the Highland Clearances.
- George I, who came from Hanover in Germany, became king in 1714 and spoke little English, so he relied on his ministers.
- Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister, in 1721, and held the post for over 20 years.
- The Enlightenment brought the idea that everyone should have the right to their own political and religious beliefs, and that the state should not interfere.
- Adam Smith, a Scottish economist of the Enlightenment, developed ideas about economics that are still influential.
- David Hume was another leading thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Ways to remember it
- The revolution is 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689, one straight after the other.
- The crowns united in 1603, the parliaments in 1707. Don't swap them.
- The Union Flag has no Welsh cross, because Wales was already united with England when the flag was made.
- The Industrial Revolution was the rapid development of industry, and Britain was the first country to industrialise on a large scale.
- Richard Arkwright developed machinery and factory methods for spinning cotton efficiently.
- James Watt, a Scot, improved the steam engine, which powered factories, ships and railways.
- George and Robert Stephenson pioneered the railway engine, including the Rocket.
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer responsible for the Great Western Railway and several notable bridges and ships.
- The slave trade was made illegal in Britain in 1807, and slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833.
- William Wilberforce was a leading campaigner against the slave trade.
- Quakers were prominent among the early campaigners for abolition.
- After abolition, over two million Indian and Chinese workers were recruited to replace enslaved labour on plantations.
- Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, the longest reign of any British monarch up to that point.
- At its largest, the British Empire had an estimated population of more than 400 million people.
- The Boer War of 1899 to 1902, fought in South Africa, was harder and less popular at home than earlier colonial wars.
- Florence Nightingale, who nursed soldiers in the Crimean War, founded the first nursing school and is regarded as the founder of modern nursing.
- The Crimean War of 1853 to 1856 saw Britain and France fight against Russia, and the Victoria Cross was introduced to honour bravery in it.
Ways to remember it
- The trade was banned first, in 1807, and slavery itself in 1833.
- Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, the longest reign of any British monarch up to then.
- The First World War began in 1914 and ended at 11am on 11 November 1918.
- The First World War began after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
- More than two million British casualties were suffered in the First World War, and the Battle of the Somme alone cost around 60,000 British casualties on the first day.
- The suffragettes campaigned for women's right to vote, and Emmeline Pankhurst was one of their leaders.
- In 1918 women over the age of 30 were given the vote.
- In 1928 women were given the right to vote at 21, the same age as men.
- The Great Depression of the 1930s brought high unemployment, though new industries such as cars and aviation grew.
- The Second World War began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, and Britain and France declared war.
- Winston Churchill became prime minister in 1940.
- The evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 rescued over 300,000 troops, many carried by small civilian boats.
- The Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was fought in the air, and the RAF's victory prevented a German invasion.
- The bombing of British cities during the war was known as the Blitz.
- Alan Turing, a British mathematician, developed the idea of the Turing machine in the 1930s, which became a foundation of modern computing.
- Allied forces landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944, a day known as D-Day.
- Germany was defeated in May 1945, and the war against Japan ended in August 1945.
- Sir Frank Whittle, a British engineer, invented the jet engine.
- John Logie Baird, a Scot, made the first television pictures in the 1920s.
- Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.
Ways to remember it
- Women got the vote at 30 in 1918 and at 21 in 1928, ten years apart.
- The First World War ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918.
- The National Health Service was established in 1948 and provides healthcare free at the point of use.
- Aneurin Bevan, the minister for health, led the creation of the NHS.
- William Beveridge's 1942 report set out the plan for the welfare state.
- In the 1950s the UK was short of labour, and people were invited from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and later Bangladesh to come and work.
- In the 1970s Britain admitted around 28,000 people of Indian origin forced to leave Uganda.
- The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973.
- Margaret Thatcher became the UK's first woman prime minister in 1979 and served until 1990.
- The Falklands War was fought in 1982 after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is British, invented the World Wide Web, and information was first sent across it on 25 December 1990.
- The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly were set up in 1999, after referendums in 1997. The Welsh Assembly has since been renamed the Senedd, but the handbook uses the older name.
- The Northern Ireland Assembly was established in 1998 after the Good Friday Agreement, though it has been suspended at times.
- The first successful cloning of a mammal, Dolly the sheep, was carried out in Scotland in 1996.
Ways to remember it
- 1948 is a busy year: the NHS begins and London hosts the Olympics.
- Devolution comes in two steps: the referendums in 1997, the new parliaments in 1999.
Chapter 4: A modern, thriving society
Geography, religion, festivals, sport, the arts and what people do at the weekend. Wide, shallow and heavy on names and dates.
- The handbook gives the UK population as just over 62 million in 2010, up from just under 60 million in 2005. It has grown since, but the test uses the handbook's figures.
- About 84% of the UK population lives in England, about 8% in Scotland, about 5% in Wales and less than 3% in Northern Ireland.
- The currency is the pound sterling, written £, and divided into 100 pence.
- Northern Ireland and Scotland have banks that issue their own banknotes, which are valid everywhere in the UK though not always accepted.
- St George is the patron saint of England and his day is 23 April.
- St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland and his day is 30 November.
- St David is the patron saint of Wales and his day is 1 March.
- St Patrick is the patron saint of Northern Ireland and his day is 17 March.
- English, Welsh, Gaelic and Irish are among the languages spoken in the UK, and Welsh is taught in schools in Wales.
- Ben Nevis in Scotland is the highest mountain in the UK.
- The Giant's Causeway, a landscape of stone columns formed by volcanic activity, is on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland.
- Snowdonia is a national park in Wales, and its highest peak is Snowdon.
Ways to remember it
- Three patron saints' days fall in spring: David on 1 March, Patrick on 17 March, George on 23 April. Andrew, on 30 November, is the odd one out.
- The Church of England is the established church in England, and the monarch is its head.
- The Church of England is called the Episcopal Church in Scotland and the Anglican Church in other countries.
- The spiritual leader of the Church of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
- The Church of Scotland is a Presbyterian church and is the national church in Scotland. Its leader is the Moderator.
- There is no established church in Wales or Northern Ireland.
- Other religions with significant numbers of followers in the UK include Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.
- Christmas Day, 25 December, celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.
- Boxing Day, 26 December, is a public holiday.
- Easter falls in March or April. Christians remember the death of Jesus on Good Friday and his rising from the dead on Easter Sunday, and the 40 days before Easter are known as Lent.
- Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs, normally in October or November.
- Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during daylight hours.
- Hogmanay is the Scottish celebration of New Year's Eve, and 2 January is also a public holiday in Scotland.
- Remembrance Day is 11 November, when poppies are worn to remember those who died in war.
- Bonfire Night on 5 November remembers the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Ways to remember it
- The end of the year runs Christmas on the 25th, Boxing Day on the 26th and Hogmanay on the 31st, and Scotland takes 2 January off too.
- The UK has hosted the Olympic Games three times, in 1908, 1948 and 2012, all in London.
- Sir Roger Bannister was the first man to run a mile in under four minutes, in 1954.
- Sir Steve Redgrave won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games for rowing.
- Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson won 11 gold medals in wheelchair racing at the Paralympic Games.
- Cricket originated in England and is now played in many countries.
- The Ashes is a series of test matches played between England and Australia.
- Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and the only Grand Slam played on grass.
- Tennis as we know it developed in the UK in the late nineteenth century.
- The Grand National is a famous horse racing event held at Aintree near Liverpool.
- Golf originated in Scotland in the fifteenth century, and St Andrews is regarded as its home.
- The Six Nations rugby union championship is contested by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy.
- Rugby league and rugby union are separate games with different rules and team sizes.
- Each of the four nations of the UK has its own national football team.
- The Open Championship is the UK's most famous golf tournament.
Ways to remember it
- London's three Olympics: 1908, 1948 and 2012.
- Grass means Wimbledon, Aintree means the Grand National, and St Andrews means golf.
- The Proms is an eight-week summer season of orchestral music, held mainly at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
- The Last Night of the Proms is the final concert of the season and is widely broadcast.
- The Mercury Music Prize is awarded each September for the best album from the UK and Ireland.
- The Brit Awards are an annual event giving awards in categories such as best British group and best British solo artist.
- The Turner Prize is awarded for contemporary art and was established in 1984.
- The Turner Prize is named after the painter JMW Turner.
- Thomas Gainsborough painted portraits, often with people in country or garden settings, while John Constable painted landscapes.
- The book describes the Man Booker Prize as an annual prize for the best novel by an author from the Commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe.
- William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy are among the best known British writers.
- The BAFTAs are the British Academy Film Awards, the UK's equivalent of the Oscars.
- Sir Christopher Wren designed the new St Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire of London.
- The Edinburgh Festival is held in the city every summer, and its biggest part is the Fringe.
- Gilbert and Sullivan wrote comic operas including HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber has written many well known musicals, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
- Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey is where many famous poets are buried or commemorated.
Ways to remember it
- Match the prize to the art: Mercury for albums, the Brits for music, Turner for contemporary art, Booker for novels, BAFTAs for film.
- The National Trust is a charity founded in 1895 that preserves important buildings, coastline and countryside.
- The National Trust was started by three volunteers and still relies on many volunteers today. Scotland has a separate National Trust for Scotland.
- UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the UK include Stonehenge, the Tower of London and the Giant's Causeway.
- The Eden Project in Cornwall houses plants from around the world in large biomes.
- Gardening is a popular pastime, and the Chelsea Flower Show is a well known annual gardening event.
- The London Eye is a large observation wheel on the South Bank of the Thames.
- Big Ben is the nickname of the great bell in the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament.
- The clock tower housing Big Ben was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
- Loch Lomond and the Trossachs is a national park in Scotland.
- The Lake District is England's largest national park.
- Many people in the UK keep pets, most commonly cats and dogs, and owners must look after them properly by law.
- Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons and the Pembrokeshire Coast are national parks in Wales.
Ways to remember it
- The National Trust: founded in 1895, by three volunteers.
- Big Ben is the bell, not the tower. The tower is the Elizabeth Tower.
Chapter 5: The UK government, the law and your role
How the country is run, how the courts work, and what is expected of you as a resident.
- The UK has an unwritten constitution, meaning there is no single document setting it out.
- The UK is a constitutional monarchy, so the monarch is head of state but does not rule.
- The monarch is politically neutral and acts on the advice of the government.
- The monarch opens each new parliamentary session with a speech setting out the government's policies.
- The monarch appoints the prime minister, who is the leader of the party that can command a majority in the House of Commons.
- The Commonwealth is an association of countries that were mostly once part of the British Empire.
- Membership of the Commonwealth is voluntary, and it has no power over its members.
- Devolution is the transfer of powers from central government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Defence, foreign affairs, immigration, taxation and social security stay with the UK government, while services such as health and education are run by the devolved administrations.
- The Scottish Parliament sits at Holyrood in Edinburgh, the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff Bay and the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in Belfast.
- The Scottish Parliament can make laws for Scotland on anything not reserved to the UK Parliament.
- The Council of Europe is responsible for human rights across its member states, and the UK is a member.
Ways to remember it
- Kept by the UK government, not the devolved ones: defence, foreign affairs, immigration, taxation and social security.
- Parliament has two houses: the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
- There are 650 members of parliament, each representing a constituency.
- MPs are elected by the public, while members of the House of Lords are not elected.
- Members of the House of Lords are usually appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister.
- Since 1999 membership of the House of Lords has not automatically passed from one generation to the next.
- The House of Lords can suggest amendments to proposed laws and ask the Commons to think again, but the Commons has the final say.
- The Speaker chairs debates in the House of Commons, keeps order, and is politically neutral.
- The Speaker is an MP, elected by other MPs in a secret ballot.
- The prime minister appoints about 20 senior ministers to the cabinet.
- The Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for the economy, the Home Secretary for crime, policing and immigration, and the Foreign Secretary for relations with other countries.
- The second largest party in the House of Commons forms the opposition, and its leader is the Leader of the Opposition.
- The opposition holds the government to account and forms a shadow cabinet.
- Civil servants are politically neutral and are chosen on merit to carry out government policy.
- The proceedings of parliament are published in Hansard and broadcast, so the public can follow them.
Ways to remember it
- 650 MPs in the Commons, about 20 senior ministers in the cabinet.
- The Speaker is an MP too, but stays neutral while chairing debates.
- You must be 18 or over to vote in a UK general election.
- General elections are held at least every five years.
- A by-election is held in a constituency when an MP dies or resigns.
- The candidate who gets the most votes in a constituency wins the seat, a system known as first past the post.
- To vote you must be on the electoral register.
- You register to vote through your local council's electoral registration office. Registering online at gov.uk only began in 2014, after the book.
- The electoral register is updated every year, and households are asked to confirm who lives there.
- Citizens of the UK, the Republic of Ireland and qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can vote in all public elections.
- Polling stations are normally open from 7am to 10pm on election day.
- Voting is by secret ballot, and nobody may see how you voted.
- The Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly are elected using forms of proportional representation.
Ways to remember it
- 18 to vote, a general election at least every 5 years, polling stations open 7am to 10pm.
- Criminal law deals with crimes, which are usually investigated by the police and prosecuted by the state.
- Civil law is used to settle disputes between people or organisations.
- Magistrates' courts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland deal with minor criminal offences.
- In Northern Ireland, most minor cases are heard by a District Judge or Deputy District Judge, who is legally qualified and paid.
- Magistrates, also called Justices of the Peace, are usually unpaid volunteers from the local community and do not need legal qualifications.
- In Scotland minor criminal offences are dealt with in a Justice of the Peace Court.
- Serious offences are tried in a Crown Court before a judge and a jury, and in Scotland in a Sheriff Court or the High Court.
- A jury in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has 12 members, and in Scotland 15.
- Jurors are chosen at random from the electoral register, and jury service is a duty.
- The small claims procedure handles minor civil disputes over small sums of money, without needing a solicitor.
- County Courts deal with a wide range of civil disputes, including debt and personal injury.
- The police are there to protect life and property, prevent and detect crime, and keep the peace.
- The police must themselves obey the law, and a complaint about the police can be made at a police station or to the independent complaints body.
- Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
- Legal advice is available from solicitors, and Citizens Advice can help people find it.
Ways to remember it
- Jury sizes: 12 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 15 in Scotland.
- Income tax is paid on earnings, and most employees have it deducted automatically through PAYE.
- Self-employed people pay income tax through self-assessment, completing a tax return each year.
- National Insurance contributions help pay for the NHS, the state pension and other benefits.
- You can start work before you have a National Insurance number, as long as you have permission to work in the UK.
- You must be 17 to drive a car or motorcycle, and 16 to ride a moped.
- Drivers must have a driving licence, insurance and a valid MOT certificate if the vehicle is over three years old.
- The book says a driving licence from outside the EU can be used for up to 12 months, and one from an EU country for as long as it is valid.
- Volunteering is a way of taking part in community life, and many charities depend on volunteers.
- School governors and members of school boards are volunteers who help run local schools.
- Recycling and reducing waste are ways of looking after the environment, and most councils collect recycling.
Ways to remember it
- Drive a car at 17, ride a moped at 16, and get an MOT once a car is over 3 years old.