Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, this is a very simple amendment with a very simple objective which I hope the Government will be able to accept. As the House knows, I find the Bill entirely unattractive and wish that we were simply getting rid of it, but if we are to have a Bill where there are fixed five-year Parliaments, then it follows, as night follows day, that there ought to be a rule governing the number of Sessions within the fixed five years. It is very odd trying to put our constitution into a straitjacket, but the Government seem intent on doing so. This amendment was considered in Committee but not very satisfactory answers were given. The reason I have been inspired to table it is that whereas we normally know that a parliamentary Session will last about a year—with the exception of the first year of a Parliament, which can frequently be 18 months, from, say, May in one year until November the following year—I am sorry to say that this Government have unilaterally decided that there would be a two-year Session to begin this Parliament. If we were following the normal conventions of our democracy then we would not be debating the Report stage of a Bill now, we would be having a Queen’s Speech. It is a year since the general election and that is the normal length of a Session of Parliament. The Government have already told us that the next general election will be in May 2015, so it seems an incredibly simple proposition that there should be five Sessions of one year each. Normally it would be completely unnecessary for me or anyone else to move an amendment requiring that this should be the case, but the Government have broken the normal rules. I do not know where the decision to have a two-year Session came from. I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, what consultation the Government had with the Opposition or anyone else when they decided that we should have a two-year Session of Parliament. As we all know, the sessional discipline is part of the delicate balance between Government and Opposition. Oppositions get stronger, in a sense, as the Session progresses because the Government know that they are up against the deadline of a Queen’s Speech; and we have had, quite properly, to establish precise mechanisms to enable a Bill to be carried over from one Session to the next. I say ““quite properly”” because we have all recognised in the past—although apparently not now—that it would be quite wrong for a Government simply to be able to extend at their convenience the periods between Queen’s Speeches. As I say, I do not like translating conventions into rules, but it is necessary in this case. Why are we not having a Queen’s Speech now? Why are the Government not bringing the first year of this Parliament to a conclusion in the normal way, after 12 months, making concessions on Bills—which is what Governments do towards the end of a Session—and then preparing for the next statement of the Government’s policies and legislative objectives, which of course is what we get with a new Queen’s Speech? If the Government are intent on having five years after five years after five years ad infinitum—although I am obviously delighted with the amendment that has been passed that will require any new Government to think again about this—what could conceivably be the objection to insisting in this legislation, which provides us with the opportunity, that there should be a minimum of five Sessions in a five-year Parliament? I looked in vain, having reread the Committee stage when this was discussed, but no one spoke against it except the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but I got the feeling that he was not wildly enthusiastic about speaking against it. The only objections that he offered were that this could present problems should there be a Dissolution of Parliament under the terms of this legislation in less than five years. We all know that that is a possibility; again, it is a part of the Bill that not many of us like, but there are precise provisions for saying how Parliaments can be of a period of less than five years. If the Government have found the mechanism for dealing with a Parliament that lasts less than five years, surely it is not difficult to find a mechanism for dealing with the consequences for parliamentary Sessions. It is unfortunate that we have to go down this road but, if we have, it cannot be beyond the skill of parliamentary draftsmen to deal with that objection. The only other case that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, offered in Committee comes in col. 526 of Hansard on 21 March. He explained why the Government decided that it would be not a one-year Session but a two-year Session; it was announced unilaterally to Parliament last September without consultation, as far as I know—although I would be delighted to be proved wrong in that respect. The explanation that was given was as follows: "““An announcement was made in September, which would normally have been between a third and half way through the Session””." He is referring to the last Session, which should have concluded this May, as I have suggested. "““There was an option to truncate the Session about now””—" he was speaking in March— "““but it was thought that the best thing to do was to go to next year””." The Minister is very precise with words; he is a lawyer and is careful what he says. It is not exactly truncating a Session to suggest that it should be for a year, however. It really is a fairly loose use of the word.