I would not bother with that.
The hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right. This is the irony—or the hypocrisy—of the Government’s position. [Interruption.] I said “of the Government’s position”; I am being very careful.
I find it incomprehensible that the Government would not want to proceed in the direction of my new clause. It is the simplest way of making sure that Prorogation is a proceeding in Parliament, and there would be no need for the ouster clause in the Bill, which many people have suggested to us is unlikely to work and is a nugatory piece of legislation.
We should also bear in mind that the Commonwealth has shown us plenty of examples of Prorogation being fiercely contested. In Australia in 1975, the Governor-General, John Kerr, removed the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and then prorogued Parliament before the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Labor party, could pass a motion of no confidence in Malcolm Fraser. That was a deliberate use of the Prorogation process to prevent proper scrutiny. In Canada in 2008, the Conservative Prime Minister of a minority Government, Stephen Harper, ordered a Prorogation to avoid a no confidence motion in himself—yet another example of the use of a process which I think is a means of trying to prevent proper parliamentary scrutiny.
One of the ironies of the situation that we have in the British constitution is that if the Bill goes forward as the Government plan and without the measure relating to Prorogation, there will be no real requirement that Parliament should ever sit. The Meeting of Parliament Act 1694 says that we should have Parliaments every three years; that is all that we would be relying on as a legislative means. It is true that the Bill of Rights requires taxation to be subject to Parliament’s sitting, and also requires that a standing Army must be endorsed every five years. However, the Supreme Court made the very good point that these practical considerations are scant reassurance, because Parliament could just sit very briefly to deal with those matters.
In short, Madam Deputy Speaker—or “in long”, actually—my point is simple: the best way to ensure that Prorogation is not abused by the Executive, and to ensure that the courts do not interfere in political processes that should remain within the political sphere, is to ensure that there is a vote in Parliament before Prorogation. The only way we can have that vote in Parliament before Prorogation is to debate it later today, and the only way we can do that is to vote in favour of my motion of instruction.
5.57 pm