Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I am interested in the noble and learned Lord’s comments, and I shall reflect on this matter. The second point that I made was whether the choice between seeking a Dissolution or there being a resignation with the possibility of an alternative Government being formed should be entirely the choice of the Prime Minister alone or whether, as we seek to do, there should be a role for Parliament when no other Government can be formed and 10 days have elapsed without a confidence motion being passed by Parliament. As I understand it, however, the objective is much the same. In a situation when you have a fixed-term Parliament and it becomes obvious that there is a logjam or deadlock, there must be some means of breaking it and triggering an early election. The same argument applies to a point made my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. I assume that he sees Amendments 35 and 38 as being taken together as part of a package. Under one of his earlier amendments, Amendment 27, he said that if the Prime Minister’s discretion over the date of the election were removed, as would happen with a fixed-term Parliament, it should be provided, "““that an early election is possible only if the House of Commons passes a vote of no confidence in the Government or if the Government resign and there is no prospect of another Government being formed””.—[Official Report, 21/3/11; col. 564.]" Although this is a technical problem that could be looked at, as presently constructed the proposal could mean that the Prime Minister of the day might choose neither to seek Dissolution nor to resign. I am sure that that is not the intention behind the amendment as it would create a very difficult situation. However, it could be a consequence of the amendment. I do not want to make too much of a technical point as I am sure that that is not a scenario that my noble friend seeks to advance. At the conclusion of our debates on the second day in Committee, my noble friend presented a scenario whereby the Government had lost the confidence of the House in a way that did not necessarily trigger the provisions of the Bill. He used as an illustration what might have happened in 1972 if the other place had refused to give the European Communities Bill a Second Reading and it had not been designated by the Speaker as a vote of no confidence. In such a scenario, the Prime Minister might wish to resign or hold an election, and the provisions of the Bill would not necessarily apply. I think it is clear that if the Prime Minister had genuinely lost the confidence of the House of Commons, under the provisions of the Bill there would be a way to make that clear through a motion of no confidence and no other Government being formed by that Prime Minister, so leading to an election. Furthermore, if there was consensus that there should be an election, that could happen with a Dissolution. Equally, it would still be open to the Prime Minister of the day to resign, as indeed Neville Chamberlain did in 1940. As the noble and learned Lord agreed in the previous debate, it would not have brought into play any of the mechanisms in the Bill. Nevertheless, it was clearly possible for a new Government to be formed under Winston Churchill in two days—I believe that was the figure that he indicated. Nothing in this Bill would inhibit that happening. If the Prime Minister of the day chose to resign, he would tender his resignation to Her Majesty the Queen and the convention would be that, so Her Majesty was not left without a Prime Minister, he would recommend to Her Majesty another MP who would be invited to form a Government. Either that new Government would fail at the first test, there would be a no confidence Motion and the new Government would not be able to get confidence, which would lead to an election; or, alternatively, a new Government might be formed and would command the confidence of the House of Commons. If it commanded the confidence of the House of Commons and could vote a supply, it would be left—