Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has just noted, it is remarkable that I have tabled an amendment which seeks to achieve exactly the same purpose as the amendments in this group tabled by the Liberal Democrat noble Lords. It is a nice example of how our parliamentary dialectic can be fruitful. The public notice all this adversarialism—they notice that we are always disagreeing with each other. However, if one takes a longer view, we find that all this debate and argument tends to produce a new consensus. Until recently, the Liberal Democrats wanted immediately to move on to discover new truths and interest us in new suggestions. They have been the grit in the oyster, endlessly introducing new ideas into our public debates. I hope that they will be able to continue to do so now that they have joined the governmental establishment. We shall see. We have heard a certain amount about Germany from the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Lord Marks. I think that it was in 1983, although the noble Lord, Lord Marks, suggested it was 1982—the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will tell us who is right—that Chancellor Kohl deliberately contrived to defeat a Motion of confidence in his Government. As I understand it, the reason was that he wanted an election because he had come to power in the previous year by means of a parliamentary vote and not by means of popular endorsement at the election. He lacked a popular mandate and he wanted one. I do not think that he was punished at the ballot box, so I am not sure that the safeguard that the Government have suggested exists against the cynical use of the no-confidence provisions in the Bill to contrive an early election by an unscrupulous Prime Minister would necessarily work. On that occasion at least, Chancellor Kohl did not suffer at the election. It is at least a possibility that Mr Cameron, too, not having won an election and feeling that he lacks popular endorsement, might, if he thought that he had an opportunity to do better in an early general election, be very tempted to go for that. It is hard to foresee that but who knows? If the 14-day provision that we are about to debate on another amendment were taken out, it would be even more important to guard against the Prime Minister being able to contrive a vote of no confidence. If immediately following a vote of no confidence he could go to the country, it would be that much more attractive to him. I think we can see why the Liberal Democrats are keen for the Bill to be amended to provide that only the leader of the Opposition can table a Motion of no confidence. It is, sadly, because they do not trust their coalition partners and the Prime Minister. They worry that, as the Liberal Democrats become more unpopular—and we will perhaps see evidence of that after the local government elections and in the AV referendum—and as the cuts, which those who voted for them did not expect them to support, start to bite, Mr Cameron may ditch them and cut and run. Unless this amendment is in the Bill, the supermajority lock may not do the trick for them and keep the Deputy Prime Minister and his colleagues in office by postponing the evil day when he has to face the electors of Sheffield and the Liberal Democrats have to face the electors of the United Kingdom. I note that an amendment of this kind would be less necessary if we were to have proportional representation as that would make it less likely that any party would win an overall majority in an early election and, therefore, it would be less tempting for the Prime Minister to contrive an early general election. However, we are where we are. The Liberal Democrats failed to secure a referendum on proportional representation and we have a referendum on the alternative vote only. I hear different views as to what the alternative vote might produce: some say that it is a majoritarian system of election that tends to reinforce the swing and others say that it is more likely that the alternative vote will produce an endless series of coalitions. Whatever the outcome proves to be in practice, with that electoral system it would be more important to have the safeguard which the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and others have proposed. I hope we do not have AV and some of us will do our best to ensure that we do not have it. I see one significant argument against these amendments. We might have a situation, which the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, has adumbrated and which the Government have already played out, in which the Government lost a vote on a key Bill, they were incapable, for whatever conjunction of circumstances, of governing effectively, and their majority had fallen as in 1951 or 1996, but the Opposition reckoned that it was in their political interest to defer the election to allow the Government to continue to stew in their political juice for a little longer. In that situation they would not want to table a Motion of no confidence just yet. Of course, that would be bad for the country. These are all hypothetical possibilities. It is very difficult for us to provide for every contingency that might arise, but I think it would be sensible to incorporate an amendment of the kind moved by the noble Lord and of the kind that my Amendment 33 provides.