During 1983–1987 Bernard Weatherill was the speaker, Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister, Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock served as Leaders of the Opposition.

These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1983 general election.

Note: The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru sit together as a party group, while Sinn Féin has not taken its seats.

This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time.

Two seats were vacant when Parliament was dissolved preparatory to the 1987 general election: