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Royal Assent When a bill has completed all its parliamentary stages, it receives Royal Assent from the Queen. Royal Assent nowadays is generally declared to both Houses by their Speakers and is listed in Hansard, the official record of proceedings in Parliament. (See, for example, Notification of Royal Assent, House of Commons, 1 May 2002) After this the bill becomes part of the law of the land and is known as an Act of Parliament. Royal Assent was last given in person by the Sovereign in 1854. The Royal Assent has not been refused since 1707, when Queen Anne refused it for a Bill for settling the militia in Scotland. Usually, public bills which have not been passed by the end of a parliamentary session are lost. Following a recommendation of the House Modernisation Committee it was agreed that, in certain circumstances, public bills may be carried over from one session to the next, in the same way that private and hybrid bills may be. The first bill to be treated in this way was the Financial Services and Markets Bill 1998/99. Acts of Parliament on the Internet Back to Making new law introductory page