Queen's partner on pliant central business associations (9)
I believe the answer is:
consortia
'business associations' is the definition.
'consortia' can be an answer for 'associations' (consortium is a kind of association). I'm unsure of the 'business' bit.
'queen's partner on pliant central' is the wordplay.
'queen's partner' becomes 'consort' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'central' means to look at the middle letters.
The middle letters of 'pliant' are 'ia'.
'consort'+'ia'='CONSORTIA'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for consortia that I've seen before include "Groups of bodies" , "syndicates" , "Associations of businesses" , "More than one commercial group" , "firms" .)