Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Amendments 36 and 37 were also submitted by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I am pleased to say that, unlike the last group of amendments, these are amendments with which I agree. I apologise again on behalf of the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who would have liked to be here to speak on the Committee's behalf. I am pleased that other Select Committee members are present, along with other hon. Members who have supported the amendments. The purpose of amendments 36 and 37 is to improve the Bill and help the Government to clarify a very important issue. There cannot be anything more important than knowing when the House is facing a motion of confidence in the Government and when it is not. This is not a matter that ought to be left open to speculation. When we face a confidence motion we need to know that it is a confidence motion, and—as has been said by Members on both sides of the Committee—it should not be used by the Whips as a tool to coerce people to vote for a particular issue lest their Government fall if the vote be lost. A motion of confidence is not a tool of the Whips; it is a very important convention of our constitution. Amendment 36 is designed to address the Select Committee's finding in our pre-legislative scrutiny report that, under the Bill,"““the requirement that the House would need to show that it had confidence in any alternative government within fourteen days to avoid an early general election could be made impossible if the Government ensured that the House was adjourned or prorogued for any substantial length of time.””" The amendment would prevent the incumbent Government from using the prerogative power of prorogation to frustrate the formation of an alternative Government, which they could do under the Bill as it is currently drafted. At present, the Government could get around the provisions in clause 2 by simply proroguing Parliament.