Dissolution of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

After agreeing to the request the King will authorise a proclamation at a Privy Council meeting, which he will then order to be issued under the Great Seal of the Realm.

By tradition, a copy of the royal proclamation is delivered by hand from the Privy Council Office to Mansion House in the City of London.

[8][9] Similar reading also takes place on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh by the Lord Lyon King of Arms.

Whereas We have thought fit, by and with the advice of Our Privy Council, to dissolve this present Parliament, which stands prorogued to Friday, the thirty-first day of May: We do, for that End, publish this Our Royal Proclamation, and do hereby dissolve the said Parliament accordingly: And the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Members of the House of Commons, are discharged from further Attendance thereat: And We being desirous and resolved, as soon as may be, to meet Our People, and to have their Advice in Parliament, do hereby make known to all Our loving Subjects Our Royal Will and Pleasure to call a new Parliament: and do hereby further declare, that, by and with the advice of Our Privy Council, We have given Order that Our Chancellor of Great Britain and Our Secretary of State for Northern Ireland do respectively, upon Notice thereof, forthwith, issue out Writs, in due Form and according to Law, for calling a new Parliament: And We do hereby also, by this Our Royal Proclamation under Our Great Seal of Our Realm, require Writs forthwith to be issued accordingly by Our said Chancellor and Secretary of State respectively, for causing the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons who are to serve in the said Parliament to be duly returned to, and give their Attendance in, Our said Parliament on Tuesday, the ninth day of July next, which Writs are to be returnable in due course of Law.

The Septennial Act 1715 increased the maximum length of a parliament to seven years, after which time it would automatically expire.

Constitutional experts held that the monarch might refuse permission under the Lascelles Principles if a Parliament had more than a year still to run and if another person could potentially command a majority in the House of Commons.

In practice, this meant that a Prime Minister with a Commons majority and the support of his party had de facto authority to dissolve Parliament at a time of his choosing.

[14] Fixed term parliaments were introduced by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 following the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement promulgated after the 2010 election, thereby repealing the Septennial Act 1715 and abolishing the ability of the Prime Minister unilaterally to request an election prior to the expiry of the five-year term.

This was due to the fact that the royal proclamation no longer summoned the holding of the election, but only the meeting of the new Parliament.

Although Prime Minister David Cameron met the Queen on the day of the dissolution, the only business discussed was the calling of the new Parliament, and not a request for a dissolution, as had happened at every such meeting historically,[18] and the subsequent royal proclamation made on 30 March simply called for the holding of the next Parliament.