The Ponsonby Rule

On 1 April 1924, Arthur Ponsonby told the House of Commons that the government would lay treaties before Parliament for 21 days before ratifying them. The practice became known as the Ponsonby Rule.

For 86 years it was a convention, not a law. Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 finally put it into statute, with a period of “21 sitting days.”

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