Recommendation 16

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Miller-Cherry case highlights that at the heart of the UK’s constitutional arrangements is a fine but constantly-shifting balance of convention, principle and law, that provides clear guidance, but also flexibility. These arrangements, when working successfully, rely as much on self- regulation and collective approbation as they do on the hard edge of the law. This is not a constitutional system in which the courts are intended be the ultimate arbiter. In areas of prerogative power, the Sovereign remains the constitutional backstop. However, the prorogation case raised questions over the extent to which the Sovereign is now able to perform this role, especially if the convention that the Sovereign should not be drawn into politically-objectionable matters is not adhered to. A range of options of how to prevent this have been suggested to the Committee, including setting out the power of prorogation in statue. The Committee recommends this is included in the review committee’s terms of reference.(Paragraph 94) The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 35