A friend told me that you can get the death penalty in England for treason. Is this true?

There are three legal positions on the death penalty. That is countries that have it (eg The USA), countries that don't (eg Sweden) and countries which reserve the right for cetain cases(eg the UK). The UK continues to have the death penalty on statue for the crime of treason against the crown, but this is not used although theortically it could be.