Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Dissolution definition

What does Dissolution mean? In family law, dissolution is the court process that ends a civil partnership and restores each partner to single status. It is the route used to end both same‑sex and opposite‑sex civil partnerships in the UK, and remaining same‑sex civil partnerships in Ireland. In England and Wales, dissolution is a statutory process under the Civil Partnership Act 2004, as amended by the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020: a sole or joint application supported by a statement of irretrievable breakdown leads (after a minimum 20‑week period) to a conditional order and then a final order. Northern Ireland now operates a...

UK Parliament: dissolution, general elections and summoning; franchise and candidacy rules, purdah, electoral offences, the Electoral Commission and Boundary Commissions, and the Salisbury-Addison doctrine

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Practice notes

This Practice Note sets out the rules on Dissolution, election and the summoning of Parliament in the UK. A Parliament endures for no more than five years before dissolution. Once Parliament is dissolved, a parliamentary general election follows, after which a new Parliament is summoned.

Dissolution of Parliament

By long-standing practice, the monarch exercises the prerogative to dissolve Parliament upon the Prime Minister’s request. There is no convention requiring the Prime Minister to consult others in advance. A Prime Minister seeking a general election asks the monarch to grant a dissolution so the election can proceed. By convention, the monarch typically agrees.

For over a decade, from 2011 to 2022, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA 2011) placed the monarch’s dissolution prerogative in abeyance and installed a Statutory scheme for calling early elections. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 (DCPA 2022) repealed the FTPA 2011. Section 2 of DCPA 2022 restores the monarch’s dissolution power, making it exercisable once more as though the FTPA 2011 had never been enacted...

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Web page updated on 27/05/2026

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