Royal assent is the final step required for any parliamentary bill to become law. It is the formal agreement of the monarch to a bill that has been passed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. This is a formality that is never refused by long-established convention.
Once a bill has received royal assent, it becomes law as an act of parliament.
While royal assent is the point at which the monarch formally makes a bill into a law, it is now a constitutional formality. The monarch acts on the advice of their ministers, and by modern convention, they will not refuse to grant royal assent to a bill that has been properly passed by Parliament.
Can the king refuse royal assent?
The power of the monarch to refuse royal assent has effectively become obsolete.
The last time royal assent was withheld was in 1708 by Queen Anne over the Scottish Militia Bill. Even in this case, the decision was driven by the deteriorating security situation facing the recently formed Kingdom of Great Britain – as opposed to a disagreement between the sovereign and parliament.
Before Anne’s reign, King William III vetoed five public bills passed by parliament between 1692 and 1696. (The Judges Bill in 1692, the Royal Mines Bill in 1692, the Triennial Bill in 1693, the Place Bill in 1694 and the Qualifications Bill in 1696).
For the monarch to refuse royal assent to a bill passed by parliament today would be to act against the will of the democratically elected commons. This development would provoke an immediate and unprecedented constitutional crisis.
How royal assent is signified
Royal assent ‘by notification’
The provision of royal assent “by notification” is the routine process used for the vast majority of bills. It was introduced by the Royal Assent Act 1967 (which repealed the Royal Assent by Commission Act 1541) to provide a simpler and more efficient method.
The House of Lords Public Bill Office must first produce a list of bills which are ready for royal assent, having been approved by parliament. The list is then signed by the clerk of parliaments.
The Crown Office prepares a commission for royal assent, which takes the form of a “letters patent”. On receipt of the commission, the sovereign signs.
The commission is taken to the House of Lords and laid on the table. In the House of Commons, a formal notice is given to the speaker.
At a convenient moment in the day’s proceedings, the commons speaker states: “I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty has signified his royal assent to the following acts…”
This formula is the same in the House of Lords.
Erskine May, the authoritative account of parliamentary procedure, adds: “The clerk of the parliaments subsequently endorses the acts with the customary Norman French formulae (see para 30.38 below); they are not spoken in either House.”
After both Houses of Parliament are notified, an act of parliament is “duly enacted”.
Royal assent at prorogation
A more elaborate ceremony for granting royal assent takes place at the end of a parliamentary session (prorogation). This is referred to as “royal assent by commission”.
The ceremony takes place in the House of Lords, involving royal commissioners (senior peers appointed by the sovereign). The commission sits on a bench between the throne and the woolsack (a large armless seat stuffed with wool and covered in red cloth, on which the lord speaker presides).
Black rod, the monarch’s messenger and senior official, is subsequently sent to summon MPs to attend the House of Lords.
The commission for royal assent and prorogation is then read by the clerk of parliaments.
The clerk of the crown together with the clerk of parliaments then stand at House’s dispatch boxes in the centre of the chamber. The clerk of the crown then reads out the short title of each bill that is to receive royal assent. Both clerks bow to the commissioner upon the reading of each bill.
On each occasion, the clerk of the parliaments turns to the bar of the House, where MPs are assembled, and pronounces a traditional phrase in Norman French.
At the end of the ceremony, the presiding commissioner announces parliament’s prorogation.
The Norman French phrases
The use of Norman French is a tradition dating back centuries.
The phrases differ depending on the type of bill.
For a public or private bill, the phrase “Le Roy le veult” (The king wills it) is spoken.
For a personal bill, an extremely rare and probably obsolete genre of legislation, the phrase “Soit fait comme il est désiré” (Let it be done as it is desired) is uttered.
For a supply bill, the formula “Le Roy remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult” (The king thanks his good subjects, accepts their benevolence, and so wills it) is articulated.
The historic phrase for refusing royal assent was “Le Roy s’avisera” (The king will consider it). This is now constitutionally obsolete.
“Le Roy” refers to “the king”. If the monarch is a woman, the equivalent term is “La Reyne” (the queen).
What happens to a bill/act after royal assent?
A bill becomes an act at the moment royal assent is signified. However, this does not necessarily mean its provisions come into force immediately. An act will come into force according to its “commencement provisions”. According to Erskine May, a commencement provision describes “when a bill (if enacted) or provisions within a bill have effect as law.”
Under a law’s commencement provisions, an act may come into force immediately after receiving royal assent.
It will come into force at a specific future date written into the act.
The act, or parts of it, will come into force on a day chosen by a government minister, who will issue a separate legal document called a “commencement order.”
Rarely, an act, or part of it, is not “commenced”. The provisions of the Easter Act 1928 to fix the date of Easter have yet to come into force, for example.
The legislation would set the date for Easter to fall between 9 and 15 April each year. But while it remains on the statute book, it has not yet been brought into force.
The act coming into force, according to a government response to a written question in March 2024, would require an order in council, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament.
The Easter Act 1928 also reportedly requires that, before the order in council is made, “regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian Body.” Kevin Hollinrake, a business minister in March 2024, responded that there was “no indication that the churches support a move to a fixed date for Easter.”
King’s consent and prince’s consent
King’s consent (or queen’s consent) is a long-established convention, distinct from royal assent, where the government must seek the monarch’s permission for parliament to debate any bill that affects the royal prerogative or the private property and interests of the crown (such as the Duchy of Lancaster).
This is understood to be a formality.
Questioned about what was then known as queen’s consent in October 2021, the attorney general, Michael Ellis, said it was “routinely sought by the government and agreed by the monarch as a matter of course.”
He added: “Consent to bills has never been refused by the monarch in modern times and legislation is not amended in order to ensure queen’s consent.”
A similar procedure, prince’s consent, is required for any bill that affects the interests of the Duchy of Cornwall. This consent is sought from the Prince of Wales. In both cases, consent is granted on the advice of ministers and is not a personal veto by the monarch or prince.
Paragraph 30.81 of Erskine May states: “The Prince’s consent is required for a bill which affects the rights of the principality of Wales and earldom of Chester, or which makes specific reference to, or special provision for, the Duchy of Cornwall; and the Prince’s consent may (depending on the circumstances) be required for a bill which amends an act which does any of those things.”
Prince’s consent was obtained for the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the majority of hereditary peers from the Lords, including the Prince of Wales. Before this legislation, some members of the royal family (including the Prince of Wales) were also members of the Lords, with a right to speak and vote.
Prince’s consent was also required for the Data Protection Bill 1998 and the Data Protection Bill 2018, in each case because the legislation expressly applied to data processed by the Duchy of Cornwall.
Additional resources
- Watch: The Speaker of the House reading out which Acts have received royal assent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AfLIn-70Zo
- Watch: Prorogation – end of the 2015-16 parliamentary session: 12 May 2016 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpdIj7tcDCg
