I thought so, so his view is that the February 1974 election should have been a fixed, five-year Parliament. I can see where he is coming from, but I know he is a Liberal Democrat, so I know his argument will be based on deep principle rather than on any short calculation. I think he needs to think again about the repeated mantra that this measure strengthens Parliament, weakens Governments and strengthens the people. I cannot understand that argument. How on earth a Government who are guaranteed five years, except in the very tightly drawn exceptions, can in any sense be said to be weakened in respect of Parliament, much less weakened in respect of the public as a whole, by this Bill is beyond me.
Surely we can agree on one factual point, and I would beg the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to concede this. The Bill will obviously reduce the number of general elections. By law, it certainly cannot increase them. The possibility for the public to express their opinion on the Government will be reduced; that is surely unarguable. We now know enough after five days of debate that this Bill is designed to strengthen the Government. It is in the national interest because it would give them a secure five years. No wonder the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted it.
You are subject to paranoia quite early if you are a lifelong member of the Labour Party, but I cannot help being a little paranoid about the commentariat, if that is the right word, who had only one story in town under the last Labour Government, which was: ““This Government are too strong. We must strengthen Parliament and the public. Governments these days are too domineering and powerful””. But on the day of the general election, the whole argument suddenly shifted and the chatterers were absolutely convinced that the crucial thing was strong Government. ““We must not have too much of this democratic stuff. We need a strong Government so we will bring in a Bill to guarantee them five years, barring some convoluted exception in Clause 2””. Those exceptions include the absurd one that even if the Government lose a vote of confidence, they can still chatter on for another 14 days to see whether they can survive.
I want to make a simple point. As far as I can see, the objective behind the Bill is that, somehow or other, over the years Prime Ministers have been abusing the power to call general elections. For those who like looking at tables, as I do because in this House we are all anoraks to varying degrees when discussing issues of this kind, I refer them to British Electoral Facts by Colin Rawlings and Michael Thrasher. On page 139, there is a table headed: "““Reasons for Holding General Elections 1832 to 2005””."
It is pretty comprehensive. Looking at the list indicating when Prime Ministers have determined to hold general elections, I defy anyone to find a frivolous or absurd reason why they called an election when they did. Let me quote briefly from the list. In 1931, we had an early general election: "““Resignation of the Labour Government and formation of a National Government by James Ramsay MacDonald who six weeks later asked for a Dissolution in order to obtain a new mandate””."
Is that stupid or frivolous? Obviously, I think it was a pretty disastrous period in our history and he is not my favourite Labour Prime Minister. In 1955: "““Sir Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Anthony Eden who immediately asked for a Dissolution””."
Is that a stupid or indefensibly partisan reason for calling a general election? In 1966 there was a: "““Request by the Prime Minister for a Dissolution to obtain a renewal of the electors’ confidence in the Government and an adequate parliamentary majority””."
That is a perfectly valid and sensible thing to do. Again, I defy anyone to find anything in this list that is a bad reason for calling a general election.
Finally, I shall say why I strongly support this amendment. I would have much preferred that the Bill had not been introduced. I would have much preferred that we could at least have agreed on four years, but this is a compromise in the classic tradition of the Cross Bench Peers. It simply provides that if after the next general election, which obviously I hope will deliver a majority Labour Government, the Government want to persist with this procedure that we are probably going to be forced to accept, they will need a resolution of both Houses in order to do so. I would love my party, should it be re-elected, to commit itself to abolishing this legislation. But as my noble friend Lord Howarth made perfectly plain, I am realistic enough to see the temptation for an incoming Prime Minister to say, ““Yippee, I’ve got five years””, under the Bill as it stands. Why on earth would he want to get rid of that power? What is all this stuff about the Bill being about weakening the powers of Prime Ministers? It would be very difficult indeed, particularly since all incoming Governments have ambitious legislative programmes and want to get cracking quickly. So it is very unlikely that unless my party commits itself to repealing the Bill, we will indeed go on with it for ever and ever.
This amendment is a clever proposal. It gives the Government what they want, which is something I do not find easy to accept, but it requires every subsequent Government to make a conscious decision to stick by this piece of legislation as a requirement of our new constitution. I strongly support the amendment.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Grocott
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 10 May 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
727 c829-31 
Session
2010-12
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2023-12-15 16:17:05 +0000
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