My Lords, first, I apologise that I was not able to speak in Committee. I did, however, read the very interesting debate, and I am extremely sorry to say that I find myself at odds with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I think he and I wholeheartedly share a concern about the creeping, stealthy growth in the size of the state and of the Executive. I have spoken on this before and I will always stand up with him to oppose it.
Also, I fear that I am taking on my former boss, my noble friend Lord Lansley, on this matter. Listening to them, I feel, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said, that they are making some very beguiling arguments. As we have just heard, what is being suggested in the amendment sounds very simple. We could be in The Jungle Book, facing Kaa and his big eyes: it is a simple, big thought that we can just introduce this amendment and all will be well.
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I can sense the strength of feeling in the House, but I will tell noble Lords why I oppose the amendment. I oppose it for a very simple reason. I see the underlying
principle of the Bill as “Trust the people”. It is about ensuring that Parliament cannot stop people expressing their views. I want to return to a system in which a Prime Minister can call an election and the election happens—no ifs, no buts, no parliamentary votes and no court cases. I think the noble and learned Lord asked exactly the right question, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Newby: “Where does power lie?”
Under what I want, power would flow directly from the Executive to the ballot box. As the noble and learned Lord put it in Committee, it is indeed one person’s decision to call an election, but that decision should automatically give power to millions of people who can pick up a stubby pencil and decide on the future of the country. Power rests with them and, if they want to punish the Government for calling an election early—as we saw to our cost—they can do so.
Flowing from that, I say with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others who have spoken, whose opinions I very much respect, that I do not buy the argument at all that Parliament should have a say—period. Let us just examine what that would mean. It would mean that Parliament would, as I understand it, last for five years, unless a majority of Members in the other place voted to end it. Now we can quibble—I will come on to this point—about whether that would be by a simple majority or a two-thirds majority, but there would be a fixed term. Saying that this amendment would still honour the Conservative Party manifesto pledge, which, let us remind ourselves, was that we would
“get rid of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act”
is in some ways technically true. But, in fact, that statement in the Conservative manifesto should have said, “We’ll get rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and replace it with another fixed-term Parliaments Act”—and I do not believe that is the intention of the Government.
Then there is the argument that a requirement for a simple majority, as opposed to a two-thirds majority, would not lead to parliamentary gridlock. This is the point that my noble friend Lord Howard made. I agree with my noble friend, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown. I contend—although I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, would not agree, potentially —that there could be a case in which the Prime Minister, if he or she was leading the largest party in a coalition, might find that his or her coalition partners did not want a general election. My noble friend Lord Lansley might say that that is unlikely. I think his words were that “in almost all circumstances” the Prime Minister would get a majority. But that is not good enough for me; it is just not good enough. Who here foresaw, when the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was going through Parliament in 2010-11, the tumult of 2019? When the original Act was passed in 2011, we were all sure that it was going to bring stability.
That brings me to my third and final point. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, argued in Committee that, if Parliament blocked a Prime Minister’s attempt to call an election, it would not be denying the people a say in a general election because
“there will be a general election within five years.”—[Official Report, 25/1/22; col. 208.]
Let us stop and think for a moment: “within five years”. We could be in a situation where, as my noble friend Lord Howard said, a Government were in office
but not in power. I am sure that the noble Baroness needs no reminding of what her manifesto said: it pledged that Labour would repeal—I use the word deliberately; “repeal”, not “replace”—the Fixed-term Parliaments Act because it
“stifled democracy and propped up weak governments.”
That is precisely the point. By the noble Baroness’s own admission, this amendment risks doing precisely that, with years of twisting in the wind.
That is what we want to avoid. Trust the people—that is the entire point of the Bill, and that is why the amendment should be disagreed.