Re:From an American view (Score 2, Informative)

The short answer is: history. Here's a slightly longer answer: Unlike the US, the UK political system is a result of historical changes over centuries, and is not a coherently thought-through system. Until devolution a few years ago, the UK Parliament was the only legislative body in the entire country. The Devolution process gave away some of parliament's powers to new parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However the three don't have equal powers to each other - the reasons being a combination of history (Scotland has always had different laws to the rest of the UK as it joined when the two nations shared the same King, whereas Wales and Ireland joined by means of English conquest), popular feeling (the Scots were more in favour of devolution than the Welsh), and the needs of the peace process in Northern Ireland. There have been plans for various powers to be devolved not to a new English Parliament, but to the nine English regions (which are comparable in both size and population to Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland, whereas England itself is massive compared to the other parts of the UK). However, this devolution hasn't got a large amount of popular support compared to the pressure for devolution from the other nations of the UK, the North East had a referendum on a regional assembly, but that gave a no vote. The only part of England with any devolved power at the moment is London. There are some arguing for an English Parliament, but there aren't very many of them - most people in England would think of it as a waste of money, because England makes up the vast majority of both the land and the people.