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By Tony Grew - 12th April 2010
The most discredited Parliament of modern times will finally end today with dissolution.
The Queen will issue a Royal proclamation, a formal announcement made under the Great Seal of the Realm, which dissolves parliament and also sets the date the new parliament will meet after the election.
New MPs will begin taking the oath on May 18, nearly two weeks after polling day.
A Downing Street spokesman explained that the later than usual date of parliament's return "reflects the wishes of the Speaker and the new arrangements proposed by the cross-party House of Commons modernisation committee in the June 2007 report 'Revitalising the Chamber.'"
Parliament was prorogued by way of a Royal commission on Thursday, in a ceremony in the House of Lords, with MPs present at the bar of the House.
Today's Royal proclamation dissolves this parliament and summons a new one.
It requires the despatch of writs of election in all 650 constituencies.
The 707 members of the House of Lords are issued new writs of summons during dissolution.
By law a general election must be held 17 days after the proclamation summoning parliament issues, excluding weekends and bank holidays.
While the law requires a general election every five years, the prime minister can ask the Queen to call one at any stage within a parliament's lifetime.
When parliament is dissolved every seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant.
MPs revert to being members of the public and lose all privileges.
They and their staff must vacate their offices in parliament by 5pm on the day of dissolution and all facilities for MPs cease.
Former MPs, inlcluding those standing as parliamentary candidates, and their staff are barred from the Palace of Westminster during the campaign.
The unelected members of the House of Lords remain, but the House does not sit.
Peers can still access the Palace of Westminster but there are limited facilities and services are available to them.
Ministers remain in post during the election campaign, but there will be no policy announcements and the civil service enters into a period of 'purdah'.
Government ministers remain in charge of their departments until after the result of the election is known.
The Queen will then ask the leader of the majority party, or a leader who can form a government with support from other parties, to form a new government.
On May 18, the 650 new MPs and the existing members of the Lords are required by law to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown when they take their seats in the new parliament.
This year for the first time peers will also sign an undertaking to abide by the House of Lords code of conduct.
Sinn Fein MPs, such as the five elected in 2005, refuse to recognise the right of the British state to rule in Ireland, refuse to take an oath of alliegance, and therefore do not take their seats in the Commons.
There could be as many as 250 new MPs after the election.
So far 146 MPs have announced their retirement, among them 95 from Labour, 35 Conservatives and seven Liberal Democrats.
The first Queen's Speech of the new parliament is expected to take place on Wednesday May 26.
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