Timeline Express Announcements

The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 which gained assent under a Conservative government introduced new more powerful administrations in the North of England to boost regional economic development.

The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners was given Royal Assent in 2011 under the Conservative-led Coalition Government bringing democracy and accountability to police forces across the United Kingdom.

The Elections Act 2022 gained Royal Assent returning the right to vote to millions of British citizens living abroad.

The Thatcher administration’s Representation of the People Act 1985 gains Royal Assent, extending the franchise to British citizens residing abroad.

Conservative Home Secretary George Cave (later 1st Viscount Cave) led the Representation of the People Act 1918 through the House of Commons, enfranchising women for the first time. This act gained Royal Assent on 2nd February 1918.

A Conservative government gained Royal Assent for the Peerage Act 1963, enabling peers to disclaim their peerages (in order to stand for election to the House of Commons) and admitting female hereditary peers to the House of Lords.

Harold Macmillan’s government gained royal assent for the Life Peerages Act 1958, providing for the appointment of merit-based life peerages and giving women the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

Royal Assent for the Second Great Reform Act, passed by the government of Conservative Prime Minister the Earl of Derby. The Representation of the People Act 1867, enfranchising part of the urban male working classes for the first time adding just short of a million voters — including many workingmen — and doubling the electorate, to almost two million in England and Wales.

Following the general election on 30 April 1857, Conservative lawyer Sir Thomas Hare published Machinery of Representation later that year and editions of his Treatise on the Election of Representatives: Parliamentary and Municipal appeared between 1859 and 1873. In these works he laid out the basic system that would go to to become the Single Transferable Vote.