Now we know when the next prime minister takes over, will there be an orderly transition?

Politics Explained: Theresa May will stay in No 10 for a day after her successor as Tory leader has been elected

The Conservative Party confirmed yesterday morning that the result of the leadership election will be announced on 23 July. At that point, the party will have a new leader, but we had to wait until the afternoon for a No 10 spokesperson to confirm that the new leader wouldn’t take office as prime minister until the following day.

It had been reported over the weekend that Theresa May intended to take questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday 24 July. Now it is official: she will go to Buckingham Palace to tender her resignation as prime minister later that afternoon.

She will be followed to the palace by Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt. Whoever wins the Conservative leadership contest will then be asked by the Queen to form a government.

When a new prime minister takes office in between general elections, there is usually a gap of a few days between the election of a new party leader and that leader becoming prime minister.

In 1990, the first round of the leadership contest was on 20 November. Margaret Thatcher failed to win enough votes against Michael Heseltine to avoid a second ballot, and withdrew from the contest on 22 November. She took her final questions in the Commons on 27 November, saying she had answered 7,498 oral questions in 698 question times.

John Major was elected leader that afternoon, and took office as prime minister the next day.

In 2007, Tony Blair handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordon Brown in an uncontested election on Sunday 24 June. Blair took his last questions in the Commons on 27 June, receiving an unconventional standing ovation, and went to the palace that afternoon. Not only that, but he announced on the same day that he would be standing down as MP for Sedgefield, triggering a by-election.

And in 2016 Theresa May was declared leader of the Conservative Party on 11 July, when Andrea Leadsom withdrew, cutting short a contest that had been expected to be decided on 9 September. David Cameron took his last questions in the Commons on 13 July, and went to the palace straight afterwards.

The finer points of constitutional convention can trip up outsiders. When on 24 May the prime minister announced her intention to stand down as leader of the Tory party with effect from 7 June, triggering the leadership election, one US TV channel reported excitedly from the green outside parliament that “the prime minister has resigned”. I am not sure if it has explained to its viewers why she is still prime minister, and will remain so for another month.

Confusingly, because a party leadership election begins only when the existing leader “resigns”, the Conservatives have invented the concept of an acting leader. May has been acting leader since 7 June, meaning that there is a vacancy which is currently being filled.

But when will May’s successor face the Commons? The new timetable means Johnson or Hunt will be prime minister for the last day MPs are sitting at Westminster, on Thursday 25 July, before they go away for the summer recess until 3 September. The new prime minister will not take questions, then, until Wednesday 4 September.

Hence reports that the new prime minister will have his right to office tested on 25 July by Jeremy Corbyn tabling a motion of no confidence in the new government. All recent changes of prime minister in between elections have been orderly affairs, some of them after great ructions. But this one could be different.