By a proclamation dated 5 November 1800, the members of the new united Parliament were summoned to a first meeting at Westminster on 22 January 1801.

The Prime Minister since 1783, William Pitt the Younger, led a broad wartime coalition of Whig and Tory politicians.

The principal opposition to Pitt was a relatively weak faction of Whigs, led by Charles James Fox.

For four years after 1797 opposition attendance at Westminster had been sporadic as Fox pursued a strategy of secession from Parliament.

Charles Grey, on 25 March 1801, tried to persuade the House of Commons to set up a Committee on the State of the Nation.

As the well-known couplet tellingly observed: "Pitt is to Addington, as London is to Paddington", which indicates the contemporary view of the relative abilities of the two prime ministers.