Since then, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so.

Critics have said this gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister, allowing them to call a general election at a time that suits them electorally.

The other was a vote explicitly in favour of an earlier election, which required a qualified majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the Commons.

[6] The repealing legislation was formally announced in the Queen's Speech of 11 May 2021,[7] and granted royal assent as the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 on 24 March 2022.

[9] Events of the 17th century began to regulate the summoning and dissolution of Parliament; the English Civil War was in large part caused by the efforts of Charles I to rule without it.

[13] The journalist John Rentoul has suggested that one of the subsequent coalition government's motives for passing the legislation was a concern about its own potential instability.

In this view the legislation was intended to make it difficult for either coalition partner to force an early election and bring the government down.

Section 1 of the FTPA provided for the polling day to occur on the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election, starting with 7 May 2015.

[citation needed] Apart from the automatic dissolution in anticipation of a general election, whether held early or not, section 3(2) provided that "Parliament cannot otherwise be dissolved".

[22] Proposed amendments that would have limited the fixed term to four years, backed by Labour, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, were defeated.

[24] Robert Blackburn KC, a professor of constitutional law, stated that "the status and effect of a no-confidence motion remains largely as it was prior to the Act".

[25] Alastair Meeks, however, a lawyer writing on the PoliticalBetting.com website, argued that, as well as removing the Prime Minister's ability to set an election date at a time of their choosing, the FTPA significantly affected the British constitution.

[3] David Allen Green, a lawyer and journalist, and Andrew Blick, a legal academic, argued that the FTPA changed little in practice, since the Prime Minister could still, so long as a sufficient portion of the Opposition agrees, schedule an election at their pleasure.

[28] In 2017 Blick argued alongside Graham Allen, who chaired the House of Commons Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform during passage of the FTPA, that the FTPA had failed "to deliver on one of its main stated purposes ... to reduce the discretion possessed by the Prime Minister in being able to determine the date of general elections".

Allen and Blick argued, however, that this was an "admirable objective" and proposed that instead of being repealed the FTPA should be amended to provide additional safeguards.

[35] This was borne out in 2019, as the Opposition blocked Prime Minister Boris Johnson's attempt to hold early elections on several occasions.

[citation needed] In September 2019 Junade Ali advised in written evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee that repeal of the FTPA should be pursued on the basis that, as A. V. Dicey noted, dissolution allows for the executive to appeal to the nation if it feels the House of Commons is no longer supported by the electors, allowing for the resolution of unforeseen constitutional crises by the electorate.

[38] Ali reiterated his argument that even if the FTPA had codified prorogation powers, the executive could instead seek refusal of Royal Assent until an early election was called, which, Ali argues, "would likely cause far greater constitutional outrage" and codification would "threaten to transform political into constitutional crises"[39] This view was supported in a submission by Robert Craig, who stated: "The main justification for the Act appears to reside in an erroneous view that the political power to call an election is inappropriate in a political constitution.

[44] On 18 April 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced her intention to call a general election for 8 June 2017, bringing the United Kingdom's 56th Parliament to an end after two years and 32 days.

As this was not a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty's Government in the form set out in the FTPA, its passing would not have resulted in a general election being called.

[citation needed] The following day, 18 December 2018, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party tabled a new motion of no confidence in the Government in the form set down in the FTPA.

[48] Jeremy Corbyn, then the Leader of the Opposition, tabled a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty's Government on 15 January 2019, after the House of Commons rejected Theresa May's draft agreement on Brexit.

[52] Boris Johnson's government attempted three times to call an early general election by means of section 2(2) of the FTPA.

[citation needed] On 3 September 2019, the government tabled a motion under the FTPA to trigger an early general election, requiring the votes of two-thirds of MPs.

[36] On 6 September, four opposition parties – Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru – agreed not to support any parliamentary vote for a general election until after the next meeting of the European Council, which was scheduled for 17–18 October 2019.

[64] On 28 October, the motion failed despite a vote of 299 to 70 because mass abstentions by the opposition prevented the forming of the two-thirds majority required under the FTPA.

Theresa May delayed the Queen's speech that was expected in spring 2019, partly as a result of concerns about the prospects for winning a parliamentary vote on it.

[84] This position was rejected in 2020 by the government, which opted to explicitly revive the royal prerogative in its draft legislation repealing the Act.

[85] Whether this would in fact constitute a restoration of the prerogative or the creation of a new statutory power is debated by legal experts, with former Supreme Court judges Baroness Hale and Lord Sumption arguing that the prerogative could be revived, constitutional law professor Anne Twomey that it could not, and Stephen Laws, a former First Parliamentary Counsel, stating that "if Parliament wants the power to be the same as it was before 2011, then it is the duty of the courts to see it as such".