Lords Library Briefing by Emily Haves. It was first published on Tuesday, 10 December 2019. It was last updated on Thursday, 19 December 2019.
Prerogative Powers of the Crown
- Prerogative powers are executive powers that can be exercised by the monarch or his or her representatives without the need for legislation.
- Prerogative powers derive from the historical power of the monarch, therefore new ones cannot be created. However, prerogative powers can be repealed by legislation.
- Most prerogative powers are either exercised by ministers or by the sovereign on the basis of constitutionally-binding advice given by ministers.
- Powers the monarch exercises not on the basis of constitutionally-binding advice are called reserve powers.
- In practice, reserve powers are often governed by constitutional convention. For example, there are strong conventions governing the appointment of a prime minister.
- Reserve powers can exist in some circumstances but not others. For example, the prorogation of Parliament is not usually a reserve power, but most constitutional experts agree that the monarch can refuse a prorogation if the government has lost or is about to lose the confidence of the House of Commons.
Secondary information
- Type
- Research briefing
- Reference
- LLN-2019-0156
- Category
- Lords Library Briefings - Topical
- Subjects
- Powers Ministers Royal prerogative Prorogation
- Published by
- House of Lords Library
- Link
- View this Research briefing on researchbriefings.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2019-12-19 14:17:15 +0000
- URI
- http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1167966
- In Indexing
- http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1167966
- In Solr
- https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/resources/1167966
- Internal location
- http://researchbriefings.intranet.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/LLN-2019-0156