Back to Business: procedure at the start of a new Parliament (special collection)

Publications / Guides

Back to Business: procedure at the start of a new Parliament (special collection)

13 Dec 2019

At the start of a new Parliament a series of ceremonies and procedures must take place before the Members of the two Houses can get down to business. Our special collection of procedural guides takes you through them, in the order they take place.

Election of House of Commons Speaker
Swearing-in
Queen's Speech and State Opening of Parliament
Election of House of Commons Deputy Speakers
Private Members' Bill ballots
Getting select committees up and running
How long do procedures at the start of a Parliament take?

A new House of Commons cannot carry out any business until it has elected its Speaker. The Speaker election is therefore the first item of business for a new House and takes place on the first day of the new Parliament.

Show more to get the key points or read the full guide. {: .small}

No MP may take part in any House of Commons proceedings, apart from the election of the Speaker, until he or she has been sworn in. Swearing-in is thus the second item of business in a new House of Commons, once the Speaker has been elected. Swearing-in is normally completed, if not before the Queen’s Speech, then before the start of the debate on it. In the House of Lords, Peers also need to be sworn in at the start of a Parliament.

Show more to get the key points or read the full guide. {: .small}

The State Opening of Parliament, with the Queen's Speech at its centre, is the key ceremonial and constitutional event at the start of a new session of Parliament. At the start of any session, neither House can consider normal public business until the Queen's Speech has been held.

Each new House of Commons must elect three Deputy Speakers, one from the same side of the House as the Speaker and two from the opposite side. Normally, the Deputy Speakers’ election takes place around four to six sitting days after the Queen’s Speech.

Show more to get the key points or read the full guide. {: .small}

Each parliamentary session, each House holds a ballot to allocate legislative time-slots to some Members to introduce Private Members’ Bills (PMBs). The PMB ballot in each House is thus another of the events that must take place early in a new Parliament. In the House of Lords, the ballot for Private Members’ Bills takes place on the day following State Opening. A Peer who wishes to enter the ballot must have the full text of his or her bill ready by the time the ballot takes place. In the House of Commons, the ballot usually takes place on the second Thursday of each parliamentary session.

Select committees in both Houses need to be re-populated with Chairs and Members at the start of a Parliament. In the House of Commons, the process of getting select committees fully up and running can take weeks. Most House of Lords select committees are typically re-established much more quickly.

Several of the ceremonies and procedures that take place at the start of a Parliament take place within days or the first 2-3 weeks. However, completing all the processes involved in getting Parliament fully up and running can take months.

Our interactive graphic compares the timings of key events in a new House of Commons at the start of the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 Parliaments.

The House of Lords moves broadly in tandem with the Commons through the early steps in a new Parliament, but it typically gets most of its select committees up and running much more quickly.

Latest / Highlights

News / Parliament Matters Bulletin: What’s coming up in Parliament this week? 1-5 December 2025

The House of Commons enters the final two days of its Budget debate, culminating in votes on the Budget motions and presentation of the Finance Bill. The Treasury Committee hears from the OBR, IFS and Resolution Foundation. Peers also devote a full day’s debate to the Budget. The Foreign, Education and Wales Secretaries and Cabinet Office ministers face oral questions from MPs. In the Lords the assisted dying bill continues in Committee. The Sentencing Bill and Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Bill receive further Lords scrutiny. The Hillsborough Law begins clause-by-clause scrutiny in the Commons. West Midlands Police face Select Committee questions about their handling of the football match between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

News / 101 resolutions and a Finance Bill. How the Budget becomes law - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 117

It’s Budget week, so we look at what happens after the Chancellor sits down and how the days announcements are converted into the Finance Bill. We speak to Lord Ricketts, Chair of the European Affairs Committee, about whether Parliament is prepared to scrutinise the “dynamic alignment” with EU laws that may emerge from the Government’s reset with Brussels. And we explore the latest twists in the assisted dying bill story, where a marathon battle is looming in the New Year after the Government allocated 10 additional Friday sittings for its scrutiny. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

Publications / Budget 2025: Letter to Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds MP calling for an ‘Amendment of the Law’ motion

The form of the first Ways and Means motion tabled after the Budget – either an Amendment of the Law motion or an Income Tax (Charge) motion – determines how much scope MPs have to propose amendments when the Budget is translated into the Finance Bill. An Amendment of the Law motion provides broader scope for amendment and was standard practice until it was unilaterally dropped by the then Government in 2017. We have written to the Chief Whip urging the restoration of this procedural practice so that MPs can properly fulfil their constitutional responsibility to scrutinise the nation’s finances and ensure that consideration of the Finance Bill is a genuinely political debate, not merely a technical exercise.

News / Is the House of Lords going slow on the assisted dying bill? - Parliament Matters podcast, Episode 116

In this episode we look at the latest Covid Inquiry report addressing the lack of parliamentary scrutiny during the pandemic and the need for a better system for emergency law-making. With the Budget approaching, we explore how the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, might discipline ministers who announce policies outside Parliament and why a little-known motion could restrict debate on the Finance Bill. Sir David Beamish assesses whether the flood of amendments to the assisted dying bill risks a filibuster and raises constitutional questions. Finally, we hear from Marsha de Cordova MP and Sandro Gozi MEP on their work to reset UK–EU relations through the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.

Blog / The assisted dying bill: Is the number of Lords amendments a parliamentary record?

The assisted dying bill has attracted an extraordinary number of amendments in the House of Lords, prompting questions about whether the volume is unprecedented. This blog examines how its amendment count compares with other bills in the current Session, and what the historical data shows about previous amendment-heavy legislation.