John Bercow: House of Commons to sit tomorrow
The House of Commons is preparing to resume tomorrow, the House of Commons Speaker has said.
John Bercow said that the parliament will sit tomorrow morning at 11.30
It comes after the UK’s highest court has said it is for Parliament to decide what happens next after it declared the five-week prorogation unlawful.
A panel of 11 justices at the Supreme Court in London ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the British Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen to suspend Parliament until October 14 was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating Parliament.
The judgment was unanimous and unqualified, Mr Bercow said, adding: “The citizens of the UK are entitled to expect that Parliament does discharge its core functions, that it is in a position to scrutinise the executive, to hold ministers to account and to legislate if it chooses.
In the light of that explicit judgment, I have instructed the House authorities to prepare not for the recall – the prorogation was unlawful and is void – to prepare for the resumption of the business of the House of Commons.
“Specifically I have instructed the House authorities to undertake such steps as are necessary to ensure that the House of Commons sits tomorrow, that it does so at 11.30.”
The court also held that the prorogation itself was “void and of no effect” and therefore Parliament has not been suspended.
Gina Miller, who led the legal challenge against the move to prorogue parliament, said outside the Supreme Court that it was a win for parliamentary sovereignty.
“Today’s ruling confirms that we are a nation governed by the rule of law. Rules that everyone even the Prime Minister is not above.”
