Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, as she thoughtfully made the case in support of this Bill. It is also a very particular pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on his splendid maiden speech. He showed himself to be—as we all knew he is—a fine and committed parliamentarian. As so often in the past, I look forward to working with him on causes that we both care about. I have not been persuaded by the case for legislating for fixed-term Parliaments—certainly not in the manner in which this Bill does. I join members of Select Committees in both Houses in deploring the haste and lack of care with which this Bill has been brought forward. It was wrong of the coalition to bounce the House of Commons early into a Second Reading in September. Like my noble friend Lord Grocott, I ask what mischief this Bill undoes and what mischief it might create. The Deputy Prime Minister made the case for the Bill at Second Reading. He said that it would remove the right of the Prime Minister to seek the Dissolution of Parliament for—as he put it—““pure political gain””. Yes, for what it is worth, it does do that. However, I do not believe that the right of the Prime Minister to determine the date of the next general election has been a great mischief. He said that it would stop feverish speculation about the date of the general election, distracting politicians from getting on with running the country; that it would bring greater stability to our political system; and that it would stop parties ending up in perpetual campaign mode, which make it very difficult for Parliament to function effectively. In their last minute response to the Constitution Select Committee yesterday, the Government added that it would engender a more long-term policy-making approach. There are other reasons why politicians are distracted, why journalists speculate, why there is political instability, why there is perpetual companioning and why there is governmental short-termism. Fixed-term Parliaments would be no political cure-all. The benefits of the Bill have been exaggerated. The Bill would make another more serious mischief worse, and it would create new mischiefs. The existing serious mischief that it would make worse is the excessive domination of the House of Commons by the Executive and the ineffectuality of the House of Commons on behalf of the people in holding the Executive to account. A Government who are more secure about staying in office for a full five years will be more dominant and less accountable. On 5 July, the Deputy Prime Minister declared to the House of Commons that the Government’s mission was to transfer power away from the Executive to empower Parliament. In his Hansard lecture of 16 November, he proclaimed, "““a programme that we can set against a single test … are we giving people the choice and control they—rightly—now expect?””." This Bill fails the single test that the Deputy Prime Minister set himself. The average interval between general elections since 1945 has been three years and 10 months. With this legislation, the people would in future have to wait a full five years before they had the opportunity to exercise their choice and control as to who should be their Members of Parliament and members of the Government. The coalition has conflated two issues to its own political advantage. There was the political question of how to ensure the longevity of the coalition and the constitutional issue as to whether we should have fixed-term Parliaments. To legislate to protect the coalition parties from facing the electors before five years are up is very convenient for two parties that formed a Government without having won an election and which are incurring bitter unpopularity for their scorched earth policies towards the economy and society. Mr Clegg affirmed on 19 May: "““This government is going to persuade you to put your faith in politics once again””—" even as Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament were meditating on breaking their promise on tuition fees and provoking new depths of cynicism among the public about politics. No wonder the Deputy Prime Minister was glad to announce to the House of Commons on 5 July that the date of the next general election would be 7 May 2015. To introduce fixed-term Parliaments is more than a wheeze to shelter the coalition from the people’s anger. As the Deputy Prime Minister went on to say on 5 July: "““This is a hugely significant constitutional innovation””.—[Official Report, 5/7/11; col. 23.]" As such, the proposal should have been put forward tentatively, consultatively and in the search for a consensus about carefully considered and genuinely necessary constitutional change. That fixed-term Parliaments were in the manifestos of two political parties does not unfortunately mean that they had been as carefully considered as they should have been. They have been considered as devices to attract votes, but I do not think that they were considered in their full constitutional significance. The spirit of caution and respect is not the spirit in which the coalition proceeds. Mr Clegg declared on 19 May: "““It is time for a wholesale, big bang approach to political reform””." That seems to me to be one of the most foolish things that I have ever heard any senior politician in this country say. Can the experienced noble Lords on the Conservative Benches do nothing to restrain these boys? As with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, there has been no Green Paper or White Paper and no draft Bill or pre-legislative scrutiny. How much better it would have been had Ministers been able to hear the thoughts of noble Lords who have spoken in this debate before they formulated their legislation. Political convenience for the coalition has again trumped respect for Parliament and the constitution. The Deputy Prime Minister said at Second Reading that, "““the timing of general elections””," should, "““not be a plaything of Governments””.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/9/10; col. 621.]" The constitution should not be the plaything of politicians who happen to be in office for the time being. Why might fixed-term Parliaments be a bad idea? In some circumstances an early general election might well be desirable. I have been impressed by that case as it has been made by a number of noble Lords in the debate so far, and I was impressed by the evidence that Professor Vernon Bogdanor offered to the Constitution Committee. A Parliament might be judged not to be viable—that was the judgment that Mr Attlee took in 1951 and that Mr Wilson took in 1974. It cannot be a good thing for a lame-duck Parliament to hobble along with a Government unable to govern effectively. It might be right for the country to have the opportunity to endorse a new Prime Minister, a judgment that Anthony Eden made in 1955 and that Gordon Brown nearly made in 2007—and the judgment that, by fits and starts, Mr David Cameron has also made. It might be right for the country to have the opportunity to endorse a new policy, as Baldwin thought about tariff reform in 1923 and as the coalition ought to think now about its extremely radical and contentious policies on the National Health Service and the welfare state. To make changes of this kind, so bitterly contentious, without any authority from people, is an offence against democracy. It might be appropriate for the country to have the opportunity to endorse a new coalition, as was the case when the national Government were formed in 1931, and might yet be the case when Tory and Liberal Democrat Back-Benchers can no longer bear this coalition. We are advised to expect that hung Parliaments will occur more frequently in the future with the reducing percentage of the vote for the two major parties, particularly if we have the alternative vote. Why should Governments be made mid-term by wheeler-dealer politicians supervised by the Cabinet Secretary inside 70 Whitehall rather than by the people in a new general election? The Deputy Prime Minister on 7 June blustered that, "““we have this great opportunity to renew our democracy from top to toe””.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/6/10; col. 46.]—" not, however, if a renewal of our democracy limits the opportunity for Liberal Democrats, discredited in public opinion, to negotiate another coalition and extend their hold on office. It might be right to hold a general election if Parliament is quite simply clapped-out and discredited. Would it not have been preferable to have had a general election in 1996 rather than wait until 1997? Would it not have been preferable to have had a general election in 2009 rather than wait until 2010? There are two safety valves in the Bill that will enable, exceptionally, an early general election to take place. Are they appropriate? Yes, in the case of the retention of the traditional right of the House of Commons to expel a Government on a vote of no confidence with a majority of one, but why legislate for a maximum of 14 days of negotiations following a vote of no confidence? Legislation is not needed to allow a period of negotiations in such circumstances, so why specify a time limit? I do not believe that in this country we will find ourselves in the same case as in Belgium or Iraq. The second safety valve is very questionable: the provision that by a vote of two-thirds of all Members of Parliament the House of Commons can vote for an early general election. Why legislate for a super-majority? The reason is political: to stop the Tories and the Liberal Democrats ratting on each other. This threshold for Dissolution is too high; a majority of one should be enough, and I believe that all this apparatus is unnecessary. Gordon Brown, in the previous Parliament, proposed that the Prime Minister should not simply be able to go to the Palace in the future but should be required to seek a majority in the House of Commons before requesting Dissolution. If that were to be the convention—and I do not believe that we would need legislation to secure it as such—it would be a simple and satisfactory solution to the primary problem which the proponents of this Bill have identified. The more we look at this short and apparently simple Bill, the more difficulties appear, as the Constitution Committee has found. What exactly is a no confidence vote? What is a confidence vote? How, indeed, are votes to be counted? That might seem an unnecessary question, except that Dr Jack, the Clerk of the House of Commons himself, raised anxieties about this in his evidence to the Select Committee in another place. Will not the impact on the Speakership of requiring the Speaker to certify a no-confidence or a confidence Motion in very contentious circumstances be dangerous indeed? The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, spoke brilliantly and devastatingly on this matter. Will not the impact on parliamentary privilege of the inclusive cognisance by the House of Commons of its own procedures be liable to be questioned by the courts consequent upon the parliamentary procedures prescribed by statute? Mr Mark Harper, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, has asserted his expert authority in contradiction to that of the Clerk of the House of Commons. I note that other noble Lords have tended to dismiss the anxiety that the Clerk expressed. As we look at this Bill in Committee, we should consider this issue very carefully. Some of these matters that I have just touched upon seem to me to illustrate the dangers of moving towards a written constitution—here I differ from my noble friend Lord Morgan. If there is to be a fixed-term Parliament, how long should the term be? Four years is more normal where there are fixed terms, we are advised. Mr Asquith intended that four years should be the norm. Since the war, only weak and unpopular Governments have staggered to the full five years. The people of this country accept that after four years, or very shortly after that, it is a fair do if the Government call the election. Whether the term should be four years or five is, as the Government have said, a matter of judgment, but it is significant that the judgment they have made is that it should be a five-year term, thus increasing the benefit for themselves and reducing the frequency with which the people will have the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights at a general election. This is just the kind of political opportunism that the Government, in their response to the Constitution Select Committee, have said that the public are tired of. I believe that we should amend this to four years. As for resetting the clock and the question of whether, after an early general election, there should be a new five-year term or whether the new Parliament should simply use up the balance of the previous five-year term, again, the coalition has opted to extend the power of the Executive and to diminish accountability. I think that is the preferable choice—not being in favour of fixed-term Parliaments—but it should also be noted that if there is an early general election and the clock is reset, the relationship between five-yearly boundary reviews and the new Parliaments that the Government attached so much importance to when we were considering the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is thrown out. If five-yearly Parliaments proceed without interruption, there will be an unfortunate coincidence in 2015, and every 20 years after, between general elections for the country as a whole and elections to the devolved institutions. It is simply boorish for the Government to impose general elections on the same day as elections to the devolved institutions, candidates for which should be judged on their own performance and their own promise, not immersed in the backwash of a UK general election. The coalition has already wrecked the 2011 devolved elections; it is now belatedly consulting. What would be wrong with amending this Bill to move the date of elections to October? The interaction with other constitutional changes has not been thought about. There are possible elections to a second Chamber and there is the interaction with the parliamentary privileges Bill that we are promised in draft. This Bill is unnecessary. It does not respond to any significant problems or real grievances. Mr Harper cites opinion polls showing, he asserts, that the public broadly welcome fixed-term Parliaments, but the Hansard Society’s audit of democratic engagement shows the public uncertain and indifferent: 60 per cent had no understanding of the issue; 39 per cent were satisfied that the Government should appoint the date of the general election; 38 per cent had no preference or view; and only 28 per cent were dissatisfied. The Bill would limit the power of the Executive in one respect—the power of the Prime Minister to determine the date of the general election—but would increase the power of the Executive through guaranteeing them prolonged life. It is busybody legislation brought in by people who want to parade themselves as constitutional reformers without having thought carefully about the constitution. It would be the duty of this House, once again, to limit the damage. I hope that when we are in Committee the Government will not regard this as a trial of strength but will look forward to Committee and treat it as a collaborative attempt to improve the legislation.