{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The wash-up period is the last few days while a

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...

continues to sit after the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

has announced the date when Parliament will be dissolved so a

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

can be held but before Parliament has been formally

adjourned In parliamentary procedure, an adjournment ends a meeting. It could be done using a motion to adjourn. A time for another meeting could be set using the motion to fix the time to which to adjourn. This motion establishes an adjourned meeting ...

prorogued A legislative session is the period of time in which a legislature, in both parliamentary and presidential systems, is convened for purpose of lawmaking, usually being one of two or more smaller divisions of the entire time between two electio ...

or dissolved.

Purpose

During the wash-up period, the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

attempts to pass unfinished business which has sufficient all-party support. This may mean compromising some aspects of business to ensure that they can be completed, and effectively gives the

Opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...

and sufficiently large groups of

backbencher In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the ...

s a veto on controversial or unpopular measures. Discussions about which items will progress during wash-up take place between the "

usual channels "Usual channels" is a term used in British politics to describe the relationship between the whips of the Government and the Opposition. Essentially, this is to obtain co-operation between the two parties, in order to ensure as much business as ...

" – the

whips A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally ...

and other officials of the government and

opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...

parties. Traditionally, Parliamentary bills could not be carried forward from one session of Parliament to another. Although Parliament's standing orders have allowed

public bill Proposed bills are often categorized into public bills and private bills. A public bill is a proposed law which would apply to everyone within its jurisdiction. This is unlike a private bill which is a proposal for a law affecting only a single ...

s to be carried forward to the next session of the same parliament since 2004 (and on an ad-hoc basis since 1999), bills still cannot be carried forward to the new parliament formed after a general election. If a bill does not receive

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

before Parliament rises, it will be lost, although a new bill could be reintroduced after the general election. If necessary, an

Appropriation Bill An appropriation, also known as supply bill or spending bill, is a proposed law that authorizes the expenditure of government funds. It is a bill that sets money aside for specific spending. In some democracies, approval of the legislature is ne ...

or short

Finance Bill A government budget is a document prepared by the government and/or other political entity presenting its anticipated tax revenues (Inheritance tax, income tax, corporation tax, import taxes) and proposed spending/expenditure (Healthcare, Educ ...

may be introduced and pass all of its legislative stages in both

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...

during the wash-up period. In rare cases, there may also be time for

private member's bill A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in wh ...

s that have almost completed the legislative process to be passed.

Protocol

A wash-up period is not mandatory: the Prime Minister may seek permission from the Sovereign in order to dissolve Parliament immediately, in which case all outstanding Parliamentary business will be lost. The last time an election was called with no wash-up period was

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China h ...

, when Parliament was dissolved immediately on 9 October and the general election held 20 days later. In

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

, Parliament was dissolved six days after the dissolution was proclaimed, after Parliament had been adjourned without being prorogued. In

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, Parliament was prorogued four days after the date of the election was announced, but Parliament was not dissolved until another 18 days later.

References

General Election timetable 2010

Wash-Up: Bills Receiving Royal Assent, 1987–2005
House of Lords Library Note LLN 2010/011, 30 March 2010
Election Timetables
House of Commons Library Research Paper 09/44, 13 May 2009
Parliament's wash-up's a stitch
Martin Bell, The Guardian, 28 March 2010 Parliament of the United Kingdom

Purpose

Protocol

See also

References