One for the Collectors: Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration And

applyparastyle “fig//caption/p[1]” parastyle “FigCapt” Statute Law Review, 2020, Vol. 41, No. 1, v–vi doi:10.1093/slr/hmaa003 EDITORIAL One for the Collectors: Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/slr/article/41/1/v/5807712 by guest on 27 September 2021 Act 2019 In all kinds of collecting—coins, banknotes, postage stamps, and the like—it is always the mistakes and irregularities that are of particular interest and consequently greater value. The position is the same for collectors of items of statutory interest: for which reason, the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019 will always be notable, as the Act that was so good they gave it Royal Assent twice. The Bill for this Act was originally given Royal Assent in the Royal Commission purporting to prorogue the Parliamentary Session 2017–2019 on 9 September 2019. That purported prorogation was declared void by the Supreme Court on 24 September 2019 in Miller v Prime Minister,1 as a result of which the instrument was treated as re- verting to the status of a Bill awaiting Royal Assent. Parliament was then prorogued by a new Commission on 8 October 2019, in the course of which Royal Assent was given to the Bill for this Act again (and one other). It would, of course, be slightly more accurate to say not that the Bill was given Royal Assent twice, but that the promulgation which is required in order for Royal Assent to have force was effected twice. And it is this subtle distinction that explains a confusion that has been expressed in certain quarters as to whether it was indeed a necessary result of the decision in Miller that the first Royal Assent was invalid. It is, of course, true that nothing in the Miller judgement cast any aspersions on the validity of the act of Royal Assent given by the Sovereign to the Restoration and Renewal Act. The Royal Assent is given when the Sovereign signifies Assent to the Bill becoming an Act, by letters patent personally signed by the Sovereign and passed under the Great Seal. The enactment of the Bill as an Act of Parliament does not, however, become complete and effective until a further process has taken place: as for that further process, since the enactment of the Royal Assent Act 1967, there is now a choice of three methods. First, the Sovereign may choose to declare Royal Assent to Acts in person in Parliament:2 this does not happen in practice, although in the last few months it has 1 [2019] UKSC 41. 2 1967 Act section 1(2). © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. • v vi • Editorial become distinctly dangerous to make statements about what does or does not happen as a matter of practice in the constitutional law of the United Kingdom. Secondly,3 the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords can notify to each House separately that Royal Assent has been sig- nified to a Bill. That is the normal method adopted nowadays for Acts which are given Royal Assent during a Parliamentary Session. Thirdly,4 Royal Assent can be pronounced ‘in the presence of both Houses in the House of Lords’ as part of the process of notifying Parliament of an act of prorogation. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/slr/article/41/1/v/5807712 by guest on 27 September 2021 That notification is carried out by Lords Commissioners attending the House of Lords for that purpose and summoning the Commons to hear the order read. The annulment of the prorogation of Parliament could not, of course, affect the validity of the signification by the Sovereign of Her Assent to the Bill for this Act. (Since Miller, it is now an open question whether the purely prerogative action of giving Royal Assent to an Act could be declared invalid by a court if, in particular, it thought that some part of the government’s role in the process leading up to the signification of Royal Assent was somehow improper:5 if the prerogative act of proroguing Parliament becomes void if based on the advice of Ministers which is tainted in some way, once that particular genie is out of the bottle one wonders whether it might cast its gaze in the direction of other Ministerial and other processes leading up to the perform- ance of other prerogative actions.) But although the Miller judgement did not affect the signification by the Sovereign of Her Assent to the Act, it of course did affect the validity of the prorogation. And although in one sense there is a difference between the prorogation itself and the Parliamentary ceremony during which the prorogation is notified to the two Houses, there was at the very least a doubt as to whether the pronouncement of Royal Assent which takes place in the course of those prorogation proceedings in Parliament was itself nullified. It was on that basis that the Royal Assent was pronounced again to the Act when Parliament was prorogued on 8 October 2019, and it was on that basis that the Act en- ters the gallery of collectable statutory oddities. Daniel Greenberg 3 1967 Act section 1(1)(b). 4 1967 Act section 1(1)(a). 5 For example, the conventional wisdom is that where two or more Acts are waiting Royal Assent, the Government has the dis- cretion to decide when to submit the Acts for Royal Assent, but cannot pick and choose between them—it is all or none: if a Government decided to depart from that rule, it would not be miles away from the Miller reasoning for the court to declare the Assent based on improper or insufficient advice and therefore a nullity..

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