Parliament has now prorogued… but what on earth does that actually mean?

In simple terms, prorogation is just the gap between one parliamentary session ending and the next one beginning. It’s the formal way of drawing a line under the current session.

The King brings it to a close, usually through an announcement delivered on his behalf in the House of Lords.

I was there on Wednesday for it - along with all the other MPs, we made the traditional walk from the Commons across to the Lords to hear the speech.

The announcement itself is a bit like a parliamentary round-up. It sets out the major bills that have made it on to the statute book during the session, along with the key measures and actions taken by the government. It’s a moment to take stock of what’s been achieved - and, sometimes, what hasn’t.

Prorogation has quite a long and, at times, political history. Centuries ago, monarchs could use it much more strategically. Parliament would be summoned by the Sovereign when approval was needed - often for raising taxes - and then prorogued to limit its ability to challenge the Crown.

These days, it’s largely ceremonial. The power still exists, of course, but it’s exercised on the advice of the Privy Council, and the whole process is more about tradition, and ending a parliamentary session, than tactics.

It’s also worth clearing up a common confusion. Prorogation is not the same as dissolution. Dissolution is what happens before a general election, when Parliament is formally brought to an end and MPs cease to hold their seats.

With prorogation, Parliament continues to exist - we’re all still MPs - but the House simply isn’t sitting. Think of it as Parliament being “paused” rather than switched off entirely.

That said, prorogation does have real practical effects. It brings most parliamentary business to a halt. Some public bills can be carried over into the next session if there’s agreement, but many others fall away.

Early Day Motions lapse, any unanswered written questions disappear, and bills that haven’t completed their passage often have to be reintroduced from scratch in the new session. So while it may feel ceremonial, it does reset quite a lot of the day-to-day work.

One of the more memorable parts of the process is what happens in the Lords chamber itself. By long-standing tradition, legislation that has passed all its stages is formally granted Royal Assent there and then - and it’s still done in Norman French.

Under the King, the phrase is “Le Roy le veult”, meaning “The King wills it.” It’s a small but striking reminder of just how old some of these customs really are.

All in all, it’s a very traditional affair - full of ceremony, history, and a fair bit of pageantry. But behind the rituals, it also marks an important moment: the end of one chapter of parliamentary work, and the starting point for the next.

With this prorogation, we’ve also said goodbye to the hereditary peers. Famous names like the Duke of Wellington and Earl Attlee won’t be returning to Lords. This was therefore an especially poignant ceremony.

Whatever one thinks about the rights or wrongs of hereditary peers in a modern democracy, there’s no doubt that those peers and their forebears have offered multigenerational service to our country - and deserve thanks.