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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – the Bill to legalise assisted dying – will begin its Committee Stage in the House of Lords on Friday 14 November. In this blog, we explain how Committee Stage works in the House of Lords, including how the House debates and decides on amendments, and how long this stage is likely to take.
Ten years after the House of Commons Petitions Committee was created – does it actually work? Does it genuinely shift policy? Or is it an emotional release valve? In this special anniversary episode, we bring together four Chairs of the Petitions Committee – one current, three former – for a candid conversation about what happens after hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of people click “sign”. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.
Peers begin clause-by-clause scrutiny of the assisted dying Bill, after a Joint Committee on Human Rights evidence session on its impact on disabled people. David Lammy takes Justice questions in the Commons. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill completes its Lords stages and begins Commons ping-pong. MPs hold a Remembrance Day debate on the armed forces. Prime Minister’s Questions is followed by a Conservative Opposition Day. The Lords continue detailed scrutiny of the Border Security Bill, Tobacco and Vapes Bill, and Crime and Policing Bill and debate the Sentencing Bill for the first time. Four Secretaries of State face questions from Select Committees and Dame Antonia Romeo, the Home Office Permanent Secretary, will face scrutiny of her department’s performance.
Having passed through the House of Commons, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill - the Bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales - must now go through its legislative stages in the House of Lords. This guide explains the special procedures for legislation in the House of Lords, and for Private Members’ Bills in particular. It answers some frequently asked questions, including how Peers might block the Bill, and gives an explanation of each stage of the process, from Second to Third Reading.
As Britain’s modern party system frays, we rewind 300+ years to Queen Anne’s reign to trace the messy, very human birth of Britain’s party politics in conversation with historian George Owers, author of Rage of Party. He charts how religion, war, and raw parliamentary management forged early party politics, as the Whigs and Tories hardened into recognisable parties. Parliament turned from an occasional royal event into a permanent institution, and the job that would later be called “Prime Minister” began to take shape through court craft and parliamentary number-crunching. Please help us by completing our Listener Survey. It will only take a few minutes.
