Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

The last moments of the speech of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) sounded a bit like a trailer for the next debate. If he does not mind we will stick with this one for the moment, although he is absolutely right to say that the way in which all the different elements of the Bill tumble together in a concatenation will make for a fairly dangerous precedent if we are not given further clarification. It is important that we establish some basic first principles on no confidence motions. First, the Government should at all times enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. It is important to state that that should be a matter solely for the House of Commons, no matter whether we change the composition of the House of Lords in future, as I hope we do. I note that motions of no confidence have been tabled and debated in the House of Lords, but that is inappropriate. The elected House of Commons, the primary Chamber, should determine whether the Government enjoy the confidence of Parliament. Secondly, it is important to say that just because the Government lose a vote, they do not necessarily have to fall. That is an important principle because I think that there are only two Prime Ministers since the second world war who have not lost votes at some point. Even Churchill lost one vote in his period as Prime Minister after the war. Attlee lost four, even when he had a majority, and Wilson lost 31, six in his first time as Prime Minister and 25 in his second. Callaghan lost 34, none of which did for him—well, obviously one did in the end. It is a sign of a healthy relationship between the Executive and Parliament if the legislature is able to defeat the Government on occasion on bits and pieces of legislation. Obviously there comes a point at which a Government might not be able to continue, for instance because they have not been able to get their Budget through in any shape or form, or because they cannot take through some major piece of legislation. In practice, as the hon. Member for Stone mentioned, what has normally happened in the past is that the Government have brought forward legislation and then lost a vote on an amendment or some motion. Often, the Opposition have then tabled a motion of no confidence the next day. The convention of the House—I note that it is only a convention—is that the Government automatically give precedence to a motion of no confidence, so that it can be debated immediately. It is obviously in the Government's interests to resolve the matter of whether the House has confidence in them. I merely note that now we are putting elements of the matter into statute rather than depending on convention and Standing Orders, there is no provision to ensure that a motion of no confidence is guaranteed precedence and can be debated swiftly, one would hope the next day. Governments have lost large numbers of votes since the second world war and before, and that is important. Some of them have been finance votes, and it is perfectly satisfactory for some finance votes to be lost, for instance on stamp duty or the rate of income tax. On 16 July 1974, the Government lost a vote on a Liberal amendment to the Finance Bill. On 8 May 1978 the Conservatives moved that income tax be cut from 34% to 33%, which was carried against the Government's wishes. On 10 May that year another Conservative amendment to the Finance Bill was agreed to, and the Government lost another motion the next day in relation to sending the Finance Bill off to Committee. I do not believe that such losses should of necessity mean that the Government should fall, or indeed that they have lost the confidence of the House in its totality. I also do not believe that a motion to censure an individual member of the Government should, of necessity, lead to the fall of the Government, a new general election or to inciting the provisions in the Bill. There have been occasions in the past, when, effectively, a motion to censure an individual member of the Government has been so considered. The last occasion when a Government who had a majority of seats in the House of Commons lost a motion of no confidence was in 1895. The motion was on reducing the salary of the Secretary of State for War, Mr Campbell-Bannerman, by £100 because he had not provided enough cordite to the troops. The motion was carried. Even though Campbell-Bannerman was probably the most popular Member of the Government at the time, he resigned and the Prime Minister decided that he would consider it to have been a motion of confidence, and the Government resigned. The incoming Conservative Government decided to seek a Dissolution and hold an election and the Conservatives came to power.