Parliament Law.

[dylanfanatic]

I know this question is 'hot' but can someone tell me the following:
1) how many times U.K parliament has been prorogued over the past 60 years.
2) who was the Prime Minister at the time of prorogation.
3) The reason for prorogation and length of time in weeks. .
4) was it given royal ascent.
If anyone can help I would really appreciate it, or if not can somebody tell me where to find the information please? Thanks folks.

[jim360]

1) On average just under once a year. It normally precedes end of sessions, which typically last a year. The only notable prorogation outside this would have been the 1997 one, when Major allegedly used an early prorogation to avoid scrutiny of a Select Committee which was about to publish an expenses report.

2) So John Major, but also every other Prime Minister.
3) See above. I think normally a week, but the 1997 one was about two-three weeks before the dissolution.
4) Assent*, and yes. As a matter of convention, all recommendations of the Prime Minister are usually accepted without the Queen needing to give her own judgement.

[jim360]

If you go back further than 60 years then there were also notable prorogations in 1948, when it was used to by the Commons to force through the Parliament Act 1949 against the consent of the Lords; 1930, when Ramsay McDonald prorogued at or near the beginning of his minority/coalition government; and I think also 1914, during the first few months of World War One.

[Buenchico]

See the table on this spreadsheet, which shows the lengths of all prorogations of Parliament from 1900 to 2017:
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2019-0111/LLN-2019-0111.xlsx
[NB: There's usually a relatively lengthy period of prorogation before a General Election. So, if you only want figures from when there was no General Election, the figures in column G should be ignored when 'Y' appears in Column E. You should also note that if a scheduled break in Parliamentary proceedings occurred at what would otherwise have been the end of a period of prorogation, then the prorogation will appear to be longer than usual because that break is then counted as part of the prorogued period].

You can match those figures to the relevant Prime Minister by referring to the list here:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom

Only the Monarch can prorogue Parliament. However, by convention, he/she 'acts upon the advice of his/her ministers', which in practice means that he/she automatically accedes to a request for prorogation from the PM.

[ABerrant]

It should be noted that there was not the usual prorogation during 2018 because it was announced at the start of the 2017 sitting that a two-year parliamentary session (expected to end summer 2019) would enable Brexit to be delivered in a smooth fashion.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-confirm-two-year-parliament-to-deliver-brexit-and-beyond

The extraordinary length of the current session was noted back in May.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and-elections/parliament/is-this-the-longest-parliamentary-session-ever/