Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Noble Lords will have heard me say that her discretion is very limited and that she seeks to stay out of controversy of this sort where she possibly can. Plainly, sometimes, the monarch’s role is to get involved and sometimes that is unwisely exercised, as with the dismissal by Sir John Kerr of the Government of Gough Whitlam in Australia. That was not the monarch directly, but it was the monarch’s representative and that shows the danger of the monarch becoming involved. Controversy has raged ever since in Australia and elsewhere about that exercise of the royal prerogative. It is a dangerous one. My point is that if you read these amendments carefully, a resolution of both Houses would be required for this legislation to survive beyond the first meeting after the next election. That is wrong. If Parliament wishes to change the law, it needs to pass new law to do so.