Half of UK population do not trust national gov't: ONS survey

LONDON, July 13 (Xinhua) -- According to a new survey published on Wednesday, 49 percent of the United Kingdom (UK) population do not trust the national government and only one in five (20 percent) report trust in the country's political parties.

The survey, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), measures public trust in the UK government as eight politicians are bidding to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister following his resignation last week as leader of the governing Conservative Party.

Conservative Party lawmakers cast ballots on Wednesday in the first round of an election to whittle down the field to the final two candidates to be selected by the party's around 200,000 members by July 21.

The ONS survey, carried out as part of an international study coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), showed that only 35 percent of the UK population trusted the national government, which compares to the OECD countries' average of 41 percent.

Trust in public services across the UK was higher than trust in the national or local governments, with the UK's National Health Service (NHS) being the most trusted public service (80 percent), followed by the courts and legal system (68 percent).