It is not intended to make any further progress, but rather bears a symbolic import: by not discussing the contents of the King's Speech immediately, the House of Commons are demonstrating that they can debate on whatever they choose and have the right to set their own business regardless of the Monarch.
In 1794 Richard Brinsley Sheridan used the reading of the bill to raise the subject of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.
The Procedure Committee investigated the history of the bill and determined that because it has symbolic meaning and takes very little time to announce, there is no need to abandon it.
[2] The term outlawry referred to the formal procedure of declaring someone an outlaw, i.e. putting him outside of the sphere of legal protection.
No one was allowed to give food, shelter, or any other sort of support – to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting, and to be in danger of the ban oneself.
The punishments for civil outlawry were nevertheless harsh, including confiscation of chattels (movable property) left behind by the outlaw.
For the more effectual preventing Clandestine Outlawries in Personal Actions, Be it Enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same.
That if after the [date] any attorney Solicitor or other person who shall prosecute any person or persons to Outlawry in any action personal wherein no Writ or Exegerit shall be awarded shall make default to send or deliver the Writ of Proclamation to the Sheriff of the proper County where the Defendant shall be dwelling at the time of awarding the Exegerit (the place of such dwelling being known), every such Attorney Solicitor or other person aforesaid making such default being lawfully convicted shall for every such offence forfeit [amount]; and if the Sheriff (the Writ of Proclamation being duly delivered to him) shall refuse or neglect before the Return of the Writ to make [number of] Proclamations according to the directions of the Act made in the thirty-first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth for the avoiding of privy and secret Outlawries in actions personal, every such Sheriff being lawfully convicted shall for every such refusal or neglect forfeit [amount].When a defendant in civil or criminal cases could not be found, the reason would not always be clear.
A person might depart for perfectly innocent reasons and be completely unaware that a criminal accusation or civil suit might be brought against them after departure.
The English common law, however, established a rule that if a defendant could not be found (or did not show up for court) after a certain waiting period and proper public advertisements, they could be assumed to have fled or hid to escape justice, and subjected to the appropriate punishments for contempt of court.
The second possibility refers to a previous Act of Outlawry describing the proper proclamations to be made to seek a legal defendant, and considers that a sheriff might neglect or refuse to make such proclamations, and nevertheless report (returning the writ) that the person was not found (and therefore presumed to be escaping justice).