Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

First, my Lords, as I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said, we owe a debt to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for moving his amendment and stimulating an interesting and thought-provoking debate. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that he was not going to move or speak to his Amendment 23 regarding your Lordships’ House. Although he did not, it was certainly the subtext of a number of the contributions—and sometimes not even the subtext, as the clever speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Reid, indicated. When I listened to what he was inviting me to do or not to do, phrases such as ““Greeks bearing gifts”” seemed to come to mind from time to time. However, there will be ample opportunity to reflect on the issues in relation to the future of your Lordships’ House over many weeks and months to come. I also disagree with my noble friend Lord Cormack, who sweepingly said that we were all glad with the result of the recent referendum. Not all of us were glad, but we will let that pass. However, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, started by asking why there had not been a Statement. While I was not glad with the outcome, as a good democrat I accept the will of the people; indeed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, suggested that that would have been the content of the statement. Indeed, the legislation provided for what would happen whether the will of the people was for a yes or a no vote. In Committee, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggested that we might have a referendum on the question of four versus five years whereas, by contrast, this amendment is more fundamental. It asks the electorate to decide whether the Bill as passed by Parliament should be brought into force and to have a legitimacy threshold of 40 per cent. Clearly, that would require further primary legislation as no provision is made in this amendment. It is obvious from the important discussion that we have had—and the noble Lord’s amendment reminds us—that while questions of referendums are of considerable constitutional significance, the referendums themselves tend to be very rare. My noble friend Lord Higgins reminded us of the Burkean principle: we have a system of representative democracy and Parliament is entrusted with the power to make many important decisions on behalf of the people of this country. There must therefore be an exceptional reason to ask the people a direct question in a referendum. I rather suspect that most of your Lordships would subscribe to that view. It would be particularly unusual in the context of this Bill, given that it does not seek to give the Government or the Executive any additional powers but, rather, seeks to take power away from the Executive to strengthen Parliament. It will be Parliament that is strengthened by this; this Bill takes away the power of the Prime Minister to call a general election at a time which may be propitious for his own party. However, some important questions have been asked regarding the context and what might trigger a referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked a number of questions. He asked what public indication there had been of support. In a letter to the Constitution Committee, my honourable friend Mr Mark Harper, the Minister, indicated that a survey conducted by Populus for the Times, published on 30 May 2009, found that 74 per cent of those surveyed supported the establishment of fixed terms. A poll conducted by ICM Research for the Sunday Telegraph, published on 26 May 2010, found that 63 per cent of those surveyed supported their establishment, and a survey conducted by the Scottish Youth Parliament in August 2010 found that 76.4 per cent of young people surveyed were in favour of establishing a fixed term for the United Kingdom Parliament. The noble Lord also asked about the number of general elections that there would be. That is not as straightforward a question to answer as it might superficially appear because it would depend on how many occasions the provisions for an early election were triggered, if at all. We cannot by any stretch of the imagination work out how many that would be but it is important, too, to recognise that there are many ways in which we engage the public in the political process. We discussed some of those issues last week. Your Lordships’ Constitution Committee examined the use of referendums in the previous Session and, while noting that referendums may become part of the United Kingdom's political and constitutional practice, it also identified the fact that there were a number of significant drawbacks. It indicated, however, that it was likely that some fundamental constitutional issues would be determined by means of referendums. A fixed-term Parliament was not one of those listed. The noble Lord, Lord Reid, said that he did not necessarily expect a full or comprehensive reply this evening. However, I will ensure that the comments made by all your Lordships are considered by my ministerial colleagues who are involved in the field of constitutional change. We may also want to reflect on this: inevitably, even if we were to make a distinction between what might be ““fundamental””—the word used by the Constitution Committee in its report—and what might be significant, it will be a matter of judgment for Ministers concerned. It is interesting that when the Constitution Committee was working on an inquiry undertaken during the life of the previous Government—I was a member of that committee at the time—it put this response from the previous Administration into paragraph 95 of its report: "““the Government have argued that ‘the decision as to whether or not a referendum should be held should be made on a case-by-case basis. We do not believe that an objective test could be established as to the circumstances in which a referendum should and should not be held’.””" That was the position of the previous Government, who advocated, as I indicated, a referendum for changing the voting system to the alternative vote in their manifesto but did not recommend one in connection with introducing a fixed-term Parliament. As I thought about the party opposite when it was in government, I noticed that the noble and learned Lord did not mention in reply to my noble friend Lord Tyler that there was no referendum on freedom of information or on the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into our domestic law. I do not recall that we were urging him to do that at the time but those were clearly important, constitutional measures. Neither was the change to establish the Supreme Court—a fundamental issue regarding the separation of powers—the subject matter of a referendum. Thinking about the arguments while they were going to and fro, it occurred to me that the only way that you would ever get the absolute definition and clarity which so many noble Lords called for was, possibly, through a written constitution. Indeed, I note that the Constitution Committee itself said: "““A written constitution could provide a more precise definition of a ‘constitutional issue’, and define which issues required a referendum before any change. The arguments for and against introducing a written constitution are outwith the scope of this inquiry””." They are also outwith the scope of this debate and it is certainly not the policy of the Government to have a written constitution. However, I rather suspect that if we ever did have one it should be the subject of a referendum. The point there is: if you are ever to get the clarity without it having to be a matter of judgment by Governments of whatever hue—a coalition or a majority party of red, blue or yellow—it would inevitably then be the subject of a decision on their part as to what did or did not reach that level of importance. I hope that I have indicated that there may be a distinction for the fundamental level. For example, the abolition of the monarchy or the secession of part of the United Kingdom are clearly of that level. As I have indicated, we do not believe that a fixed-term Parliament falls into that category. The previous Government of the Labour Party did not appear to think that it fell into that category either. In the whole plethora of measures that were brought in through the CRAG Act before the last election, I think only the possibility of having AV was going to be subject to a referendum.