Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, the hour is late so I have no wish to detain the House. First, I would like to congratulate my noble friend on this amendment, which I think is a great improvement on Clause 2. I have been reading Clause 2 again and it is like some kind of pre-nuptial agreement. If you look at the reasons behind it, clearly this is a clause put together by two parties who are not quite sure whether this marriage is going to work out. The reason we have the provision of more than a simple majority is clearly because the Liberal partners in the coalition were worried about the Prime Minister cutting and running and calling an early election when they were very unpopular. You can see how the architecture of this Bill has been created and it has nothing whatever to do with the proper functioning of the House of Commons. Clause 2 is completely unnecessary, but I respect my noble friend’s very constructive attempt to try to go with the grain and not be too confrontational, as perhaps I am being now, about this clause. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that my preference would be to leave out the proposed new subsections (3) and (4) for the reason that, as the noble Lord, Lord Martin, has so eloquently explained, we should not be putting the Speaker in a position where he is involved in this. Throughout the evening my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace has been very patient and very good and very constructive. I have asked him on several occasions why we need to have the certification process at all. It goes back to the pre-nuptial agreement. Normally, if the Prime Minister wants to call an election, people accept that, but people have thought we cannot have the Prime Minister doing it so we have to have somebody else. You can see them sitting in a room thinking, ““Well, who could we have? Well, we will have the Speaker””. It has not been thought through. It is not necessary. We do not need the Speaker to sign a certificate saying that a motion of no confidence has been passed. Where I take slight issue—I support my noble friend’s amendment, but it is not perfect—is with the list of what constitutes a motion of no confidence. As has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, I do not think that you can have a Bill, "““defined by the Prime Minister of the day as being essential to his or her administration continuing in office””." My noble friend Lord Tyler is absolutely right about that. If a Bill that was central to the Government’s programme, a flagship Bill, was defeated in the House of Commons, any leader of the Opposition worth his salt would the very next day table a no-confidence motion, which would take precedence over all other parliamentary business under the rules and conventions of the House of Commons. Presumably, Members would either vote for or against that motion. I do not see the need for this list. In my noble friend’s amendment, I like the bit that says, ““Leave out Clause 2”” and I like the bit that says, "““An early parliamentary general election is to take place if the House of Commons passes a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government””," but then I think, ““Why do we need any of the rest?””. I would be very grateful if, during the course of these proceedings, we could answer these very simple questions. You do not need the Speaker to sign a certificate and, if the House of Commons can pass a motion of no confidence, that motion does not need to be moved by the leader of the Opposition. But if the House of Commons no longer has confidence in the Government, there has to be a general election. That is a tried and tested thing that has continued for years. I agree, too, with those who have said, ““What is the point of this Bill?”” If a Prime Minister wants to have a fixed-term Parliament, he can say, ““I am not going to call a general election till the fifth anniversary of the previous election, or the last possible moment””—and there we have it. Normal conventions will apply. We have this Bill, but it is a muddle, and if we are going to proceed with it we need something like my noble friend’s amendment, which leaves out Clause 2. If we could do away with the list or reduce its scope—perhaps continuing to include the Finance Bill but certainly taking away the requirement on the Speaker to issue a certificate—we would end up back to where we started. The great advantage to where we started is that we know that it has worked and it has worked for centuries.