The rules governing recall of the House of Commons are set out in Standing Order (SO) No.13 (concerning an “Earlier meeting of House in certain circumstances”).

Under this Standing Order the Speaker of the House of Commons can decide to recall the House based only on representations received from Ministers – in effect from the Prime Minister. He is unable to recall the House at the request of an MP who is not a Minister in His Majesty’s Government.

If Ministers make such representations, then formally the Speaker’s only discretion is that he must be satisfied that a recall is required in “the public interest”. In practice, for a Speaker to refuse the Government’s request to recall the House would cause a constitutional crisis.

If he agrees that it is required, then the Speaker must appoint a time for the House to meet. There is no minimum period between the Speaker ordering the recall and the meeting of the House. Normally, however, the Speaker will allow a short period to elapse – generally between 36 and 72 hours – for the notification of MPs and to allow for their travel time to London. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will reimburse any reasonable costs that an MP incurs in returning to Westminster.

The Speaker must also advise the Clerk of the House of his decision and ask that the necessary steps be taken to resume the Session. Parliamentary officials must then make the arrangements, including asking staff to return from holiday if required, and preparing and publishing the Order Paper for the new sitting day.

If the House of Commons is recalled, in recent years the House of Lords has also normally been recalled to meet on the same day(s). However, the two Chambers do not have identical sitting times so the House of Lords has sometimes already been sitting on a day that the House of Commons is recalled to meet.

Under Standing Order No. 16 in the House of Lords the Lord Speaker (or, in his absence, the Senior Deputy Speaker) may recall the House at his or her own initiative, if (s)he is “satisfied that the public interest requires it”.

The Standing Orders in the House of Lords do not stipulate that representations must first be made by a Minister. However, the Lord Speaker is required to “consult” the Government before making a decision.

In practice, the Lord Speaker would be unlikely to recall the Lords if the Government opposed the move.

As in the Commons, parliamentary staff in the House of Lords will be instructed to make the necessary arrangements to facilitate the early meeting of the House.

If Parliament is prorogued it cannot be recalled in the usual way under the Standing Orders of each House. This is because prorogation - suspending parliamentary business for a short period to mark the end of one Session and the start of a new Session – is a prerogative power. It is undertaken by a Proclamation made by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The prorogation Proclamation sets the date of the next meeting of Parliament and the start of the new Session. A fresh Proclamation by the King, setting out an earlier date on which MPs and Peers must meet, would therefore be needed to give effect to an accelerated meeting of Parliament.

The law requires that the meeting of Parliament be accelerated during prorogation in the event that:

• the Monarch dies (Succession to the Crown Act 1707);

• the provisions of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 have been engaged, requiring Parliament to consider emergency regulations laid under powers in the Act;

• reserve forces have been called into active service under the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

Parliament cannot be recalled if it has been dissolved for a General Election. Dissolution means no Parliament exists to be recalled.

The Government has had the power to recall Parliament during an adjournment since the Meeting of Parliament Act 1799.

Between 1920 and 1931 the power to recall the House rested with the Speaker after consulting with the Government.

However, between 1932 and 1947 the power effectively assumed its present form, of the Speaker recalling the House but only at the Government’s request. This position was then formally reflected in the wording of the Standing Order (now No. 13) adopted in 1947.

Prior to the creation of the position of Lord Speaker in July 2006, his role in respect of the recall of the House of Lords was undertaken by the Lord Chancellor (or, in his absence, the Lord Chairman of Committees). This rule for recall of the House of Lords was formally incorporated in the Standing Orders in May 1970 and prior to that by a resolution of the House each Session.

The House of Commons has been recalled 34 times since the current rules – under Standing Order No. 13 – were introduced in 1947. Of these 34 recalls:

• 15 have been to respond to international matters;

• 11 to domestic situations;

• 4 to address procedural matters; and

• 4 for the delivery of tributes following the death of a member of the Royal Family or a parliamentarian.

The House of Lords has been recalled 32 times in this same period.

On only 1 occasion has the House of Lords been recalled, but the Commons was not:

• in February 1980 to facilitate a Law Lords judgement regarding a steel industry strike ruling.

However, there have been…

3 occasions where the Commons was recalled, but the Lords was not:

• in January 1968 when MPs debated public spending cuts;

• in May 1970 when MPs debated the prorogation and dissolution of Parliament; and

• in June 2020 when MPs considered their own procedures for hybrid proceedings because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

3 occasions where the Commons was recalled, but the Lords was already due to sit, so did not need to be recalled:

• in July 2011 when MPs debated confidence in the media and police due to the phone-hacking scandal;

• in January 2021 when MPs considered emergency public health regulations to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic; and

• in April 2021 when His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh died.

3 occasions where the Lords was recalled, but the Commons was already due to sit, so did not need to be recalled:

• in November 1963 to pay tribute following the death of President John F. Kennedy;

• in January 1965 to pay tribute following the death of Sir Winston Churchill; and

• in January 1968 to discuss economic policy.

Sources: Kelly, R. Recall of Parliament, House of Commons Library Briefing Paper No.1186, 22 January 2024, and Recalls of the House of Lords.

In Edinburgh, responsibility for recalling the Parliament rests solely with the Presiding Officer who “may convene the Parliament on other dates or at other times in an emergency” (Standing Order Rule 2.2.10). In practice, the parties are consulted through the Parliamentary Bureau – the body that organises the business of the Parliament and which is chaired by the Presiding Officer.

In Cardiff, the Senedd’s recall arrangements are like those of the House of Commons. Standing Order 12.3 provides that the Presiding Officer may recall the Senedd to consider a matter of “urgent public importance” at the request of the First Minister. During the Covid-19 pandemic, temporary changes were made to the Standing Orders, so that the Presiding Officer could recall the Senedd with the agreement of the Parliament’s Business Committee “to consider a matter of urgent public importance related to public health matters” (temporary Standing Order 34.9).

In Belfast, under Standing Order No. 11 the recall of the Assembly must be initiated for the purpose of discussing one or more matters of urgent public importance if notice is given to the Speaker by (a) the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, or (b) by not less than 30 Members.

In 2001 the Hansard Society’s Commission on Parliamentary Scrutiny argued that if Parliament was to be an effective forum at times of crisis, and retain its significance to public debate, then the rules governing recall had to be revised. The Commission suggested that the Speaker be granted the power to recall Parliament at times of emergency if one or more MPs requested it and following consultation with the party leaders.

In 2003 the House of Commons Procedure Committee largely agreed with the proposal of the Hansard Society Commission and recommended that the decision on recall should rest with the Speaker.

In 2007, in its The Governance of Britain Green Paper, the then-Labour government proposed that “where a majority of members of Parliament request a recall, the Speaker should consider the request, including in cases where the Government itself has not sought a recall. It would remain at the Speaker’s discretion to decide whether the House of Commons should be recalled based on his or her judgement or whether the public interest requires it, and to determine the date of the recall.” However, these proposals were never implemented.

In October 2007 the House of Commons Modernisation Committee also initiated an inquiry into Dissolution and Recall (to which the Hansard Society submitted evidence), but it did not complete its deliberations before the Committee ceased to meet.

In his October 2017 Hansard Society Lecture, then-Commons Speaker John Bercow MP (then also the Society’s Co-President) also called for reform of the recall procedure, arguing that the House belongs to all its Members, not just the minority who occupy ministerial office. In doing so, however, he acknowledged the need to build safeguards into any new procedure, to ensure that the recall process was not open to partisan exploitation and was used only in genuinely urgent circumstances.

He suggested, for example, that a petition for recall might be launched “if it involved a relatively high number of our 650 MPs, perhaps a quarter of them, provided that at least a quarter of that quarter were drawn from those who support the Government and at least a quarter from the Opposition.”

To date, however, little progress has been made in reforming the recall rules.

Hansard Society (2024), How is Parliament recalled?, (Hansard Society: London)