20:04 - The House divided: - Ayes: 229 / Noes: 325 - Question accordingly negatived.
20:19 - The House divided: - Ayes: 233 / Noes: 321 - Question accordingly negatived.
20:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 234 / Noes: 314 - Question accordingly negatived.
22:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 320 / Noes: 234 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Jenkin
I survived, but I have to say that it is a very disappointing whirlpool, and that is no reflection on either my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) or my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg)—whichever was representing the whirlpool or the many-headed monster. However, if this is an opportunity to put some instability in the Bill, I will certainly support new clause 5 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. I have my name on it in any case.
I would echo the sentiment that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) expressed in an interesting speech in response to new clause 3. The question of constitutional Bills is an interesting innovation introduced by Lord Justice Laws, but I would tell my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that Lord Justice Laws was merely including in his judgments something that had been widely understood by constitutional theorists for some time, although it had never been legally expressed in such terms. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment and, indeed, with that of the hon. Member for Rhondda that Parliament should determine which of these laws is constitutional and overrides subsequent Acts of Parliament. Clearly, the European Communities Act 1972 was expressly intended to do that, as has been recognised by the courts, and the 1689 Bill of Rights does that, but Lord Phillips concluded in a recent case that the doctrine of implied repeal applies to the 1689 Act.
Mr Shepherd
The constitutional arrangements of Australia are a matter of written statute there, and I understand that the Governor-General exercised the prerogative power in the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers. However, that is not what I am concerned about; I am concerned about our own constitutional processes. I think that the statement by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was misjudged, but he has never withdrawn it. He is a representative of the Government, and of the Crown itself, but as a Member of Parliament he has never withdrawn that statement.
My nervousness about the Bill is clear. I am nervous about the idea that two parties can mandate that their existence as a coalition should last for a term of five years. I have expressed that view before, and I think that it is shared by a number of Members. I have no doubt that the Lords will think that measure trivial in some ways, because it is a presumption; how can one mandate something that is formed by human beings with their own policies and parties? They can work together to a certain extent, but the coalition will last as long as the coalition lasts. I am not damning it; I am just saying that I do not think that they should have reached forward with a Bill of this nature. If they want to work in harness they will have the support of a great many Members of this House. We know that the nation is confronted with an economic crisis and difficult decisions have to be made. The people of this country are having to make difficult decisions on how to restore economic competence, balance budgets and all the rest of it.
We have spent a lot of time on the first matter, so I will now come to the real new clause, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, which I will undoubtedly vote for. His brevity today was extraordinary. [Laughter.] I do not laugh at it, for I think that the expression of great ideas is all the more effective for being expressed in a concentrated and condensed way. I appreciate that there is a drinks party at Downing street for Members from my party who want to attend, so I will bring my remarks to a close, as the great business of the Government must not be delayed by the musings of the House of Commons on such matters as constitutional reform.
I am standing up to support the limitations that are being expressed and the hesitations about the nature of the Bill. If there were one thing that I could argue for and effect, it would be that the Government themselves realise that they have a job. We salute them for that, but, when they fiddle with the constitution in ways that suit only their own purpose and stifle the natural functioning flow of politics, we lose something, and we lose the attention of our constituents. My argument is that we cannot march to a drumbeat like that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity at least to raise our caveats, and I am grateful to the Labour party for indicating that it will support the new clause. It is important, and I commend it.
Mr Harper
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) for his generous opening remarks and, as usual, largely excellent speech. I say “largely”, because I do not entirely agree with his characterisation of the other place, given the behaviour not, I hasten to add, of their lordships’ House, but of a small number of former Labour MPs, who are filibustering and abusing every procedure of that House to try to frustrate the will of this elected House of Commons, which passed the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill by a considerable majority. Apart from that, I very much enjoyed my hon. Friend’s speech.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Deputy Prime Minister to have abused the Members of the House of Lords in the form that he chose?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
That is most certainly not a point of order for me. I am sure that there are other ways in which the hon. Gentleman can express his views, and I am sure that the Deputy Prime Minister—like the Minister who is present—will be well aware of what has just been said. Please, Mr Harper, continue.
Mr Harper
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that I drew a distinction between certain Members of the other place and the other place in general, about which I have no complaint.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset explained very clearly the effect of his new clause 3, and he was concerned about changes to clause 1 being made using powers in the Parliament Act 1911. It is already the case—this is a subject on which I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that the Parliament Act cannot be used to push through legislation that extends the life of Parliaments. One hon. Member—I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash)—pointed out that because of the Bill’s provisions allowing the Prime Minister to vary the date of an election by up to two months in an emergency, we cannot use the Parliament Act to push this legislation through against the wishes of the upper House. However, the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset would, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, also prevent this House from reducing the length of a Parliament without the agreement of the other place. It does not seem desirable to put that provision in place.
Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911, to which my hon. Friend’s new clause refers, sets out important rules about the relationship between this House and the other place. Those rules have been in place for some time, and the Government certainly do not intend to start changing that relationship. It is already the case that we cannot lengthen a Parliament, and given what I have said, we do not want to start changing the Parliament Act as my hon. Friend’s new clause would.
Chris Bryant
I presume that the Minister is therefore confirming that the Bill does lengthen a Parliament.
Mr Harper
Yes. The Bill sets out a five-year term, and in an emergency it would be possible for the Prime Minister to vary the length, so we cannot use the Parliament Act to enact it. That is a perfectly straightforward point. It is in the Bill; it is no great secret at all.
Mr Harper
No. It is very clear in the Bill. I do not think that the issue arose in Committee.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) also put his finger on this issue when he correctly drew attention to it in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. If my hon. Friend presses the new clause to a vote I shall ask hon. Members to oppose it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone, in speaking to new clause 5, said that the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was about perpetual coalition arrangements. It is not about fixed-term Governments, but about the length of Parliaments. All it does is take away the Prime Minister’s power to dissolve a Parliament and bring it to an end. It replaces that right with two provisions that establish no-confidence procedures, which we have already, and give Parliament the opportunity to vote for an early Dissolution.
Mr Deputy Speaker
All I can say is that all the amendments and new clauses have been chosen in the right and proper way.
Mr Harper
Exactly; it is a very cunning new clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone put his finger on the point that an amendment simply to take away clause 2 would have been a wrecking amendment. The power of revival is the cunning disguise in which the new clause is wrapped.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) described clause 2 as a fig leaf. I do not agree with that characterisation, but even if the House agreed with it, I am not sure that hon. Members would be as keen to remove the fig leaf as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex appeared to be. [Interruption.] No, that is what he said. He said that it was a fig leaf and that he wanted to remove it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone seemed to establish a new doctrine in his speech. He seemed to be suggesting that all Acts of Parliament should lapse at the end of a Parliament, just in case the new Parliament is of a different complexion and its Members disagree. He said that the House should not bind its successors. It is perfectly true that the House cannot bind its successors, because each successive Parliament can repeal Acts; that is the normal way. However, it is not the normal procedure for all Acts to lapse at the end of a Parliament, just in case the new Parliament disagrees with them.
The Government hope, although they cannot bind their successors, that the public and future Parliaments will find the arrangements in the Bill acceptable and will keep them in place. Future Parliaments are, of course, at liberty to change them. However, we do not think that there should be what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone described as a sunset clause to remove the powers. If clause 2 were removed as he suggested, it would effectively give back the power to the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament at will. We have argued throughout the passage of the Bill that that would be undesirable.
Chris Bryant
Many of us believe that the Prime Minister has that power even under the Bill, because all he has to do is table a motion of no confidence in his own Government, to which the Opposition would almost always agree, and there would be a general election. Be that as it may, I am sure that the Minister argued and voted for sunset clauses in relation to control orders, which, I understand, will expire next Monday. Is the same provision not necessary in this Bill?
Mr Harper
No; the Government’s intention is to change the system so that there are fixed-term Parliaments, apart from in the two possible cases set out in the Bill. We think that that is a desirable change. If the public and future politicians agree that it is desirable, it will stand the test of time. That is what we hope for and what we have argued for.
My hon. Friends the Members for Stone and for Harwich and North Essex raised concerns about the two procedures in clause 2—motions of no confidence and motions on early elections—that allow for early elections. However, the House of Lords Constitution Committee was fairly supportive of those measures.
The Committee said that it was
“sensible for the Bill to contain some form of safety valve which would allow for an early election in circumstances such as the government losing the confidence of the Commons or where a political or economic crisis has affected the country”,
and concluded that the safety valves that we had included were appropriate. The Committee also looked at the risk of the courts intervening, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex mentioned, and concluded:
“The risk that the courts may intervene in any early dissolution of Parliament by questioning the Speaker’s certificate is very small”,
adding:
“we do not consider the risk to be sufficient to warrant a rejection of clause 2 of the Bill.”
Based on what the House of Lords Constitution Committee has said, I, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, am confident that when this House approves the Bill, as I hope it will, and it is debated in their lordships’ House, they will give it proper scrutiny, but in the end give it a fair wind and pass it. However, if my hon. Friend presses his new clause 5 to a vote, I will urge all hon. Members to reject it and to keep clause 2 as it stands.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Chris Bryant
I was referring to the use of Prorogation at the end of a parliamentary Session. I believe that that should be in the hands of this House, not in the hands of the Government. Sorry, in fact I was referring to the case where a Government might choose to use Prorogation expressly to prevent an alternative Government from being formed. The Deputy Leader of the House might reassert what the Parliamentary Secretary said earlier—that the monarch would simply sack the Prime Minister in such circumstances—but I do not believe that the monarch has such a power. In fact, since statute law would have expressly stated that that power was still there, I cannot see how that could possibly happen. Alternatively, the Deputy Leader of the House might say that the monarch would refuse to grant Prorogation. That would set the monarch directly against the Prime Minister, and in such a contest there would be a real constitutional crisis, which some would want to take to the courts because the provisions would by then have been placed in statute law.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The hon. Gentleman is exploring an interesting argument, but there is currently nothing to prevent a Prime Minister from requesting Prorogation to avoid a vote of no confidence if he believes that the monarch will accede to his request. Given that that has never happened, why does the hon. Gentleman think that such a constitutional anomaly is more likely to arise following the passage of the Bill than under the present arrangements?
Chris Bryant
The Deputy Leader of the House has made a fair point. However, because we are now putting in statute significant elements of the way in which the British constitution might work in the future, rather than, of necessity, what exists at present, we are creating a labyrinth which Prime Ministers may well wish to navigate. I shall say more about that shortly, once I have given way to the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who is talking to a Whip at the moment.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman highlights a crucial element, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle mentioned earlier—the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—that was an Adjournment debate and was not even a formal resolution. That shows exactly the problem with the Bill as it is worded. It accepts the principle that there is no requirement for a formal vote of no confidence, but it does not accept those nuances that are part of the argument that, even if a Government win but do not meet a threshold that they have set beforehand, they have in effect fallen.
I can think of another example from our devolved Administrations. It was clear in 2001 that the then First Minister of Scotland, Henry McLeish, had lost the confidence of the Scottish Parliament and of his party. On the morning of the no-confidence debate he resigned as First Minister. That did not lead to the proroguing of the Scottish Parliament. It was an unprecedented event in the short history of the Scottish Parliament, but it survived. I hope that the Minister will, even at this late stage, take on board the fact that, as far as Oppositions ever are, we are seeking to be helpful to the Government, and certainly to the House, by providing some technical amendments to tidy up the Bill.
The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) referred to France and the United States. I was not aware that he was such a Francophile, but perhaps that is the result of the new coalition spirit. My understanding—I am happy to be corrected—is that the French President has the power to dismiss the Prime Minister summarily, but I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is not advocating that we adopt the same position in this country.
As the Minister knows, I am something of a bore on the subject of the United States’ constitution. When the founding fathers of the United States were considering the peculiarities of their arrangements in the constitutional convention, one thing they desperately tried to avoid was over-lengthy terms of office. That is why they have elections every two years in their states. Votes for Congress, the Senate and the Presidency are staggered. Although I accept that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire is trying gallantly to defend the Minister’s position, I fear that it is not a straightforward example to apply in this case. I have spoken in favour of the amendments, but I am conscious that the Prime Minister will be rushing to the House and that the Minister wishes to reply, so I will end my comments.
Mr Heath
I do not think that the House has had as elegant and extensive a debate on Prorogation since the legislation was passed in 1867. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for opening the debate and to the hon. Members for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), for Foyle (Mark Durkan), for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for their contributions. I must say, however, that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife blotted his escutcheon as a political anorak by being four editions of “Erskine May” off the pace. To quote the 19th edition when we are now up to the 23rd is really beyond the pale.
Thomas Docherty
For the benefit of the Deputy Leader of the House and of the Official Report, my point was that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to the fact that up until the 19th edition of “Erskine May” the word “shame” was not allowed. My point was that we have moved on, and I have the 23rd edition in my hand.
Mr Heath
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for restoring my faith in his credentials, although he has destroyed those of the hon. Member for Rhondda.
The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford put his finger on what was wrong with the debate once we had prised him from his views on reasonably priced white wine, because he made the point, which I think was backed up by the hon. Member for Foyle, who mentioned an Urquhart-like Prime Minister, that many of the rather apocalyptic views of what an evil denizen of No. 10 might do seem to be founded on fancy, rather than on experience or expectation. We have been asked repeatedly to assume that every convention that applies has applied and will apply, whether the Bill becomes law, as I hope it will, or not. All those conventions would be summarily set aside.
It has been suggested that there would be confidence motions that no Member of the House, not even Mr Speaker, would recognise as confidence motions. It has been suggested that Prime Ministers who lose a vote of confidence might refuse to resign and remain in office despite the fact that they had lost the vote, or that if once they resign they might somehow give posthumous advice from beyond the political grave to Her Majesty to prorogue and therefore frustrate the intentions of the House and of the legislation. It is then suggested that Her Majesty, in a way that has never been the experience of any Member of this House or our predecessors, would be so forgetful of her constitutional duty that she would not ask another leader capable of commanding the confidence of the House to form a Government and end any temporary Prorogation.
I believe that those are fanciful concerns. I accept that they are theoretically possible, but I ask the House to consider whether any of those things have happened. Almost all of them are included in the conventions that cover our political system and our current constitutional arrangements and will persist after the passage of the Bill. I am indebted to the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which someone casually looking at our debate might imagine had been critical of the provisions in this part of the Bill, but far from it. It examined the matter in some detail, and the witnesses were unanimous in their view. Paragraph 147 states:
“Professor Bradley agreed that such a possibility, while theoretically possible, ‘would be very unsatisfactory and British politics would have sunk to a new low.’”
Professor Bogdanor was mentioned earlier, and the confidences of the tutorials between him and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) might or might not have been breached, but he suggested that the situation could reasonably
“be left to the discretion of a ‘wise constitutional monarch’”,
which is indeed what we have,
“who would not prorogue at the request of a Prime Minister who no longer had the confidence of the House.”
The Committee, having heard the evidence rather than the conjecture, concluded:
“We agree that the risk of abuse of the power of prorogation is very small. We therefore conclude that Her Majesty’s power to prorogue Parliament should remain.”
So, there was very clear advice from the noble members of that Lords Committee, and I am sure that it will colour their consideration of the matter.
We have heard from lots of people who profess to know what happened in Canada, but, just in case there are lingering concerns about the extraordinary situation of the Prorogation that apparently saved the Canadian Government, I note that the Lords Committee took evidence from an academic who probably knows a little more than any of us in this House about the Canadian political system. Professor Henry Milner, from l’université de Montréal, stated in his evidence:
“The Canadian case was unique because prorogation saved the government, which it normally should not. ... [The] circumstances [were] so unusual that you could not imagine them. I would have to give you each of the steps in the Canadian case, all of which were unlikely and all of which fitted together. Frankly, I would not worry about it.”
That is probably a safe conclusion for this House.
On the proposed changes before us, I shall deal, first, with new clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, and the consequential amendments 2, 3 and 4, which would give the House a new and exclusive power to prorogue Parliament. Most contributors to the debate were clear about this, but we need to make a clear distinction between Dissolution and Prorogation, because they are very different things, and the Government believe it important that the Bill provides the House with the power to decide when there should be a Dissolution of Parliament.
It is legitimate to give the House control over early Dissolution, because that will take place only in circumstances where the Government of the day have lost the confidence of the House and can therefore no longer lead the country effectively, or where a two-thirds majority of elected MPs has passed a motion calling for an early election. Those are matters directly concerned with the choice of Government and the election of Members, and it is right that this elected House should have primacy.
Prorogation, however, is a different matter. Hon. Members will know that it is a mechanism to bring to an end a Session of Parliament. It determines, subject to the carry-over procedure, when Bills must have completed their passage through both Houses so that they become law. That relates to the point that several hon. Members made, whereby, if we prorogue while Bills are still in process, they are lost. Sometimes, an incoming Government will wish that; sometimes, they will not, particularly if they are of a similar political complexion to the previous Administration.
The hon. Gentleman’s new clause places no obligation to consult or agree with the other place on the timing or length of Prorogation, even though it affects that House equally. The new clause would therefore give this House a controlling hand over the conduct of business in the other place by providing us with the power to dictate when the other House must have completed its business. That would be a significant departure from the current situation in the wash-up, and some might view it as an unwelcome extension of this House’s powers.
As I said in earlier debates, through this Bill the Government seek to make only those changes to the constitution necessary to facilitate the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. The proposed new clause seems to fall wide of that intention.
Thomas Docherty
I have listened attentively to the Minister’s remarks. Notwithstanding his reluctance to support our reasoned amendment, will he outline where he has got to, therefore, in discussions with the devolved Administrations about how the elections will work, and outline when we will see proposed legislation? Clearly, there is a significant knock-on effect for devolved elections.
Mr Heath
I would do so, but that would impinge on the following group of amendments, and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), will be able to respond to that point during the debate about them. It would be unwise for me to leap ahead, so, although I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point, I hope that he accepts my response.
I shall address other issues that have been raised in relation to the Prime Minister’s existing power to prorogue Parliament, because, as I stressed at the beginning of my response and stress again, many of the arguments are based on the theoretical mischief that, somehow, a Prime Minister might prorogue Parliament for his or her own purposes, without accepting the fact that they can do so equally today. They can do so, as I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda, to prevent a vote of confidence that they feel likely to lose. So, with the Bill we are not strengthening the hand of the Prime Minister; far from it. We are taking away one critical element, but Prorogation will remain exactly as it is.
The conventions of this House are sufficiently strong. For instance, there is no obligation in law for the business managers to find time to debate an Opposition motion of no confidence, but the strong convention is that time will always be found for that purpose, because it is a convention that has worked well over the years. I do not believe that there is any reason why it should not work well in the future. I cannot accept that the artificial process that has been described is a real danger.
Let us consider the circumstances. There are two basic scenarios during the 14-day period in the Bill. In the first, political factors mean that a no-confidence motion passes, and there is no obvious alternative Government, so the Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the House remains in place to fight the election. There would be no need, or indeed point, for the Prime Minister to prorogue the House. The alternative is that the Prime Minister resigns after the no-confidence motion and Her Majesty appoints a new Prime Minister. Even if the new Prime Minister took office and found the House prorogued, he or she would, under the current arrangements, ask the Queen to recall Parliament. Although I acknowledge the principle behind new clause 4 and amendments 2, 3 and 4, I hope that I have demonstrated that it would be unwise and unnecessary to make them.
On amendment 9, clause 3(4) specifically preserves Her Majesty’s power to set the first day for the meeting of a new Parliament by royal proclamation. As it stands, the date of the first meeting of a new Parliament is set by proclamation and is usually agreed with the House authorities and the palace. The date is conventionally set out in the proclamation that dissolves the old Parliament. The Bill retains as much as possible of that approach by providing for the Queen to issue the proclamation summoning the new Parliament once the old Parliament has dissolved, rather than after the new Parliament has been elected. Following the last election, a date was chosen that allowed sufficient time for the large number of new Members to be inducted. It is important that such flexibility is preserved.
The purpose of amendment 9 appears to be to require Her Majesty to set a date for the first meeting of a Parliament that is within 15 working days of the general election. Again, I have a quibble over drafting, because it is not entirely clear whether the intention behind the amendment is that Her Majesty should issue the proclamation within 15 working days, or whether the first meeting of Parliament should take place within 15 working days. The hon. Member for Rhondda made it clear that his intention was the latter, but that is not clear in the drafting of the amendment. Our primary purpose in the Bill has been to establish fixed terms and set out the procedures for initiating an early election. We have made only the necessary consequential changes to the Queen’s powers. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman not to press amendment 9.
Amendments 14 and 15, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle, suggest that if the House votes for an early Dissolution under clause 2, it should be able to choose the date of the ensuing general election. The Bill provides that if there is to be an early general election, the date will be set by Her Majesty the Queen in a royal proclamation on the advice of the Prime Minister. That is to ensure that an appropriate date can be found, for instance so that the poll can be held on a Thursday, as has become standard practice.
Although amendment 14 provides that the date of an early general election would be set out in the Speaker’s certificate, that would be the case only if the House of Commons had specified such a date in the Dissolution motion. That is a genuine concern with the amendment because a two-thirds majority is required to agree that there should be an early Dissolution. Under the amendment, two thirds of the House would also have to agree to the date of the election. It is quite possible that Members would agree to the one proposition and not the other. Alternative dates and amendments could therefore be tabled. That would muddy the water of what should be a clear-cut process. That is a concern about the operation of the Bill, if it is enacted, which perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not considered.
Mark Durkan
Amendment 14 would make it optional, not obligatory, that a date be specified. If the House votes a year or more in advance of the election, why should the date not be fixed then, rather than it being left up to the Prime Minister? Under the Bill, the House, by a two-thirds majority, would be handing a power back to the Prime Minister that the Prime Minister says he wants to give up.
Mr Heath
I do not dismiss the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. I understand what he is saying. However, in purely practical terms, it is difficult for the House to receive advice from any quarter on what would be an appropriate date. The House as a whole would find it difficult to take the sort of advice that the Prime Minister, as an individual, could easily assemble. In the politically charged atmosphere of a vote of no confidence, it is hard to understand—[Interruption.] Sorry, not a vote of no confidence. I could see what the hon. Member for Foyle was thinking. In the consideration of an early election, it would be even more difficult to set.
There are always technical issues in establishing the most appropriate date for a general election, and the considerations of all parts of the United Kingdom must be taken into account. I know that the hon. Gentleman has had mixed experiences, but he knows that it is the experience of the devolved Administrations that it is useful in the circumstances that have been suggested for an individual to have this responsibility. Giving it to the House as a whole would be technically difficult, without a significant advance in the arrangements being achieved.
I move on to amendment 8, which the hon. Member for Rhondda said “makes things tidy”, in the words of his valet. I am sure that it would, and I have some sympathy with his argument. The amendment would lengthen the election timetable by requiring Parliament to dissolve 25 working days before polling day, rather than 17. The Government recognise that remaking the election timetable is a complex matter that we should consider. However, it cannot be done simply by edict and without the background work.
The Electoral Commission supports the idea, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He did not make a great deal of that in his speech, but I know that he knows the background material. The commission has suggested that an extension to the electoral timetable would support participation by overseas and service voters, and better support the effective administration of elections. We agree that it is an important issue, and the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated to the commission that there is merit in exploring a change to the timetable. However, as the commission has pointed out, it would require a thorough review to ensure that any change is consistent with the arrangements for elections across the piece.
A host of practical issues and consequential complexities must be considered. We will have to form a balanced judgment on where particular milestones would best fall within an extended election timetable. For example, there might be competing views about the deadline for nominations, and we would have to work to find the most effective compromise. Another crucial milestone is the deadline for registering to vote, which, although not part of the timetable structure, is inextricable from it. That illustrates that such changes to the timetable cannot be made in isolation. As part of the process, we would need to consider the current deadlines for postal and proxy vote applications. Additionally, different elections across the UK run to different timetables and moving to 25 days in Westminster would not, of itself, generate consistency.
As I have said, the Government agree that this is an important issue and we will set out our proposals on the timetable in due course. We have held initial discussions with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators to identify points to address. It should be noted that the Bill already greatly enhances the ability of administrators and candidates to plan ahead, because we will know when general elections will happen, usually at least five years in advance. The various people involved in running elections will be able to factor that into their thinking and organisation. Even if the provisions for an early election were engaged, the Bill sets out clearly the steps from the Dissolution motion or no-confidence motion to the Dissolution of Parliament, and those steps will be conducted in the public eye. There will be no more snap elections, and I believe that electoral administrators and candidates can be glad about that.
The final reason for asking the hon. Member for Rhondda not to pursue amendment 8, despite its merit and the fact that the issue needs to be considered, is that the Bill is not the right place to amend the election timetable. The Bill is about fixing the date of the poll, not wholesale electoral reform, as we have said repeatedly. Governments are constantly urged by everyone to have focused legislation that deals with specific objects. This is just such a piece of focused legislation and I do not want to cloud the simple but constitutionally significant issue of fixing parliamentary terms with other electoral issues.
Having said that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who have tabled amendments will not press them to a vote, so that we can continue with the debate on the final group of amendments.
Chris Bryant
I note that the Prime Minister’s drinks party has clearly ended, because the whole Conservative party has gathered in the Chamber. We heard earlier that the Prime Minister had been serving reasonably priced drinks, so I hope that all hon. Members paid for them.
Chris Bryant
I suppose it would, but I am not in favour of five-year terms. Political events change at a dramatic pace these days and a five-year term would not meet that requirement. I suspect that such an arrangement would mean that Governments both here and in the devolved Administrations would more regularly be at the fag-end of their sense of having a mandate, and a four-year provision would be much better. I am sure that we shall return to this matter on Third Reading.
I have no desire to delay the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I have made my point. In essence, it is that we believe it would be better to have a four-year fixed-term Parliament, because that would help us to avoid the elections for the devolved Administrations coinciding with the general election. We need change only one other measure to make sure that that never happens; we need to provide that we do not start the clock again when there has been an early general election. The Government’s intention is to try to make us fall into the rhythm of fixed-term Parliaments and not have lots of early general elections, and such a provision would give people an added incentive not to seek an early general election because they would know that they would then have only a short Parliament before the next general election, which would fall on the previously arranged date. Without any further do, I shall conclude and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Mr Harper
The amendments relate to the date of the election and it is worth touching on the points that a number of hon. Members have made about the coincidence of the proposed date of 7 May 2015 with the date of the devolved elections. It is worth saying, as we said in Committee, that it is entirely possible and, indeed, likely that, regardless of whether or not this Bill was introduced, the UK general election could have been held on the same day as those devolved elections if this Parliament had run for five years. In some sense, the Bill provides an opportunity, because it has highlighted and crystallised that fact at an early stage, when we have the chance to debate the consequences and do something about it.
As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, and as we discussed in Committee, I wrote to all the party leaders in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament proposing to give their Assembly or Parliament the power to extend its term by up to six months. That was to go alongside the existing power to shorten the term by six months to provide a window of a year in which it could vary the date of the election to avoid that once-in-20-year coincidence with the Westminster election.
Dr McCrea
The Electoral Commission’s letter said that there was a
“need for a comprehensive research study on the implications of combining elections”
and that the Commission was “not aware” that that work had taken place up to the moment of writing. Has that research commenced?
Mr Harper
I heard very clearly what the hon. Gentleman said in his intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda, and I was going to refer to that point anyway. Let me finish this part of my speech and I shall come on to that.
I wrote to the party leaders. They wrote back and I think it is fair to say that they were underwhelmed by the proposal to give the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to extend their term by six months to provide that one-year window. For that reason, the Government did not table an amendment on Report, as we had suggested that we might if the responses were more positive. The party leaders and Presiding Officers raised some other points, some of which the hon. Member for Rhondda has raised today, about alternatives. We are considering them and will write back to the party leaders as well as keeping the Opposition and the House informed. For the benefit of Members, I should say that copies of the letters that I have written have been placed in the Library of the House today.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the tone in which the Minister is responding to this part of the debate. For his information, his office sent me a letter by e-mail today, apparently responding to a letter I sent him on 21 December. It was in fact a letter about something completely different, so if he could arrange for the actual letter to be sent to me, I would be grateful.
Mr Harper
I replied to a letter that the hon. Gentleman sent to me. He might find—I can absolutely get him a copy—that the letter about the letter to the party leaders went to the shadow Secretary of State’s office today. I can make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets a copy directly and, as I said, I placed copies of those letters in the Library of the House.
The Electoral Commission’s letter made some sensible points about considering all the issues raised by combination. It seems to me that there are two kinds of issues: first, the practical delivery of elections—how we make the mechanics run—and, secondly, making combination easier. That is not just related to the devolved elections and those for the Westminster Parliament. The fact is that whether or not one agrees with the Government’s proposals, we are proposing elected police commissioners and some elected mayors, so there will be more elections and more of them will take place on the same day. Therefore, we need to make that easier. Another issue that came up in the debate, which is serious and valid, concerns the extent to which media coverage and so on means that two different conversations can be going on at the same time for different elections. That will obviously engage the political parties, broadcasters and people more widely.
The Electoral Commission’s suggestion is very good, but it has not taken place to date. The Government think there is some support for it, but given where we are in the timetable and given that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wanted to consider the experience of the combined elections in Northern Ireland this year, it might be a good idea to consider what happens with the referendum and elections in May—in only a few months’ time—and use that experience to kick off some project along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) once the Government have considered the suggestions from the party leaders. That might give us a possible route forward.
Chris Bryant
The Minister referred to elected police commissioners and more directly elected mayors. Will he confirm that they will all also be on four-year terms, rather than five-year terms? If he wanted to provide a little more tidiness—I can see him smiling, because he knows how this sentence will end—he could change this five-year fixed-term Parliament to a four-year Parliament, even if he only did it for after 2015.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister has said that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will monitor what happens with the elections that will take place this year. After he has done that, will there be close co-operation and consultation with the parties and the Electoral Commission to find the correct way of proceeding and learning from anything that goes wrong? Is that the suggestion?
Mr Harper
Yes, I have discussed this with my right hon. Friend and he intends, as we have discussed in Committee and announced to the House, to consider the experience from this year. We want to work with all the parties in Northern Ireland, just as I have written to all the party leaders in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, to reach some agreement on what works well, what does not work and what needs to change. That will be very much on a cross-party basis.
Jonathan Edwards
I understand that the Deputy First Minister in Wales would prefer a five-year cycle for the National Assembly for Wales. Is that on the table for the Government?
Mr Harper
I will not start picking bits out of individual letters, but, given our debates in the House about preferences for four or five years, it is interesting that there have been suggestions from party leaders about moving the devolved Assemblies on to a five-year cycle. Given what has been said here and that the devolved Assemblies and Parliament were set up after considerable debate and have been on a settled model for some time, that would be a big jump and quite a change to the constitutional settlement.
Naomi Long
The Minister has talked about considering the context of the forthcoming Northern Ireland Assembly elections coinciding with the referendum campaign, but a better comparison would be the impact on the local government election campaign, in which the same range of parties will fight on very different issues. We need to consider this issue in that important context because the referendum campaign will not be party political in that sense and so is not directly comparable to running party political campaigns at the same time. The issue with running a general election campaign alongside an Assembly election campaign in Northern Ireland is that media coverage will focus on the general election campaign in a UK context, looking at parties that do not garner votes in the Northern Ireland context.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady makes a good point. When the Deputy Prime Minister and I introduced the Bill, we said that a UK general election coinciding with a devolved legislature election would be qualitatively different from a referendum campaign coinciding with a devolved legislature election for the very reason that the hon. Lady says—there would be a narrative and a debate going on and there would be questions about whether the media, newspapers and broadcasters would fairly cover both parts of the debate and whether the public could therefore take properly informed decisions in both elections. We need to consider that issue with all the parties and broadcasters and see whether there are ways around it.
Let me address amendment 1, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) moved on behalf of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform. The intention of the amendment is to clarify that, in the event of an early general election—before 7 May—under subsection (1) or (2) of clause 2, the general election specified in clause 1(2) would not take place, but the Bill already makes it clear that the general election of 7 May 2015 would take place only if no intervening early general elections under the procedures in clause 2 had occurred. Clause 1 sets the date for the first scheduled general election, “subject to” clause 2—those words appear in the first subsection of the Bill’s first clause. If there were an early general election, it would replace the election of 7 May. The Select Committee has been very helpful in scrutinising the Bill and its amendments have brought about some good debates. Amendment 1 is good in that it has enabled this debate, but it is not necessary because the Bill is already clear.
Amendments 10 and 11, which the hon. Member for Rhondda spoke to, would mean that the parliamentary term following an early general election would last only for the remainder of the previously scheduled term. To use a phrase that the Committee used in its report, it would keep the clock ticking on the five years whether there was an early general election or not. There has been quite a lot of speculation among academics and others on whether that would act as a disincentive for a Government or strong Opposition to engineer an early general election because a new Government would get a term of perhaps only a few months. We did think about that, and we debated it in Committee. The flip side to that is that there is an election in which a Government get elected, perhaps with a significant majority, quickly followed by another election. That explains the Government’s choice of wording.
There is a technical problem with the amendments. An early election could take place just before the scheduled election but the scheduled election would still be held. The rules for the devolved assemblies provide a window, so that if the early election takes place very close to the scheduled election, the scheduled election does not take place. If the early election is more than six months before, the scheduled election still takes place. As the amendments are drafted, there could be an election only weeks before the scheduled election, and the scheduled election would still have to be held. That would not make a great deal of sense.
Chris Bryant
The Minister is right; that would be the eventuality. However, I think that would fly in the face of what in practice would happen politically, because some six to nine months before a general election people would choose not to bother to militate for an early general election—they would just accept that the next general election was coming. I understood that that was what the Minister was trying to achieve—fixed-term Parliaments.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman was hypothetically pessimistic earlier. Now he takes the opposite approach: he is being hypothetically optimistic. The Government’s view was that we could have that early general election and the Government could be returned with a large majority, and we think the public would expect that Government to govern.
Interestingly, the Constitution Committee in the other place agreed with the Government’s approach. Its report concludes that a newly elected Government should have a full term of office, and that the Government would present its programme to Parliament through the Queen’s Speech, which, of course, is traditionally considered to be a test of confidence. We think that in that situation the Government should have the right to carry out their programme for the full five years, and it would make little sense to ask the voters to go back to the polls when they had sent out a clear message.
I accept that that is a debatable point—we had a significant debate in Committee—but let us look at it from the public’s end of the telescope rather than our own. If we were to have an early general election, because the Government had lost a confidence vote or because there had been a general sense that we should have an early general election, it would seem a little ridiculous if the public had made a clear choice, sent a Government into office with a significant majority, and then a few months later were back doing it all over again.
I think that, on balance, the Government’s decision and the current drafting of the Bill make sense. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, on behalf of the Select Committee, to withdraw his amendment 1 and I urge the hon. Member for Rhondda, just for once, to think about whether he really wants to press amendments 10 and 11 and potentially force the British people to undergo election after election in close succession—something which neither he nor I would want to achieve.
Simon Hart
I am much encouraged by the Minister’s comments and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3
Dissolution of Parliament
Amendment proposed: 8, page 2, line 29, leave out ‘17th’ and insert ‘25th’.—(Chris Bryant.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am grateful to Members who have taken part in debates on the Bill, in particular the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who sadly is not in his place, and members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who have been forensic in their scrutiny.
The Bill’s reforms are an essential part of the Government’s drive to modernise Parliament. Currently, a Prime Minister can, effectively, call an election on a whim—a situation that my colleague and friend, the late Lord Holme of Cheltenham, once described as a race in which the Prime Minister is allowed to approach the track with his or her running shoes in one hand and the starting pistol in the other. Something as important as the timing of a general election must not be determined by the whims of Prime Ministers and the self-interest of political parties. I believe that all parties agree on that. The Bill proposes the introduction of fixed-term Parliaments, bringing a new stability to our political system and, crucially, ensuring that when Parliament does dissolve early, that is a matter for this House.
Debate on the Bill has been vigorous. That is why we allowed extra time in Committee. While we may not see eye to eye with colleagues on the Opposition Benches on every detail, throughout the debates there was broad agreement on what it seeks to achieve.
Let me turn briefly to some of the issues that have attracted most attention. First, on early Dissolution, the Bill provides that Parliament will be dissolved early only if at least two thirds of MPs vote for Dissolution or if a Government are unable to secure the confidence of the House of Commons within 14 days of a no-confidence vote—passed on a simple majority, exactly as is provided for right now.
Those arrangements are complementary. They are workable. Most importantly, they strengthen the power of Parliament to hold Government to account. We are proposing a new power for the House to vote for an early Dissolution, as well as, for the first time, giving legal effect to the existing procedures for a vote of no confidence. I ask Members to note that the Constitution Committee in the other place has endorsed those two mechanisms for triggering an early election.
The Government do not accept the concern that the new right to dissolve Parliament will undermine this House’s exclusive cognisance. Such an important constitutional innovation absolutely should be laid down in statute, but we are confident that the courts will continue to regard matters certified by the Speaker as relating to proceedings in Parliament, which are, in turn, protected by the Bill of Rights. I was delighted that the Constitution Committee—a Committee that includes distinguished parliamentarians and lawyers—agreed with the Government’s assessment of the Bill’s interaction with parliamentary privilege.
On the length of Parliaments, we have looked into the suggestion that four years is preferable to five. It is true that this is not an exact science. It is a question of judgment, but, all the arguments considered, we remain of the strong view that five years, the current maximum and more recently the norm, will encourage the stability and long-term perspective that British politics too often lacks.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Can the Deputy Prime Minister give us one example in which he or another leading member of the Liberal Democrats before May last year was in favour of a five-year fixed-term Parliament?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We were in favour of fixed-term Parliaments above and beyond all else, and always accepted that the issue of whether it was four years or five years was a matter of judgment, as I said. Five years, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, is the maximum term available to us already, and of the last five Parliaments three stretched to five years, including the last Parliament under a Labour Government.
Austin Mitchell
But the judgment of the Liberal party was that four years was the appropriate length of a Parliament. That is what was in the Liberals’ manifesto and what they put up to the Labour side in the coalition negotiations. They asked for four years and election by single transferable vote. Why suddenly switch to five?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, the principle of a fixed-term Parliament was by far the most important thing. Whether that is four or five years—some people argue for five, some argue for four—might divide opinion and might create synthetic objections from those on the Labour Benches, but it is none the less secondary to the principle of giving the House greater power over the Executive. That is what the Bill establishes. Personally, I would not fetishise about 12 months one way or another in a term of four or five years. We have decided in the coalition agreement and as a Government—[Interruption.] It is a decision from the Government. I know that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) finds it deeply uncomfortable not to be in government. He is not. We are, and we have decided five years.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
One of the consequences of the decision to have a five-year term in the first instance will be the coincidence of the date of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly elections in 2015. In the debate in Committee, we were advised by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) that there would be discussions with the devolved Administrations on that. Can the Deputy Prime Minister report to us now on the outcome of those discussions?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was present for my hon. Friend the Minister’s update to the House on Report, when he gave a full account of the ongoing discussions with the devolved Administrations and the Presiding Officers of the devolved Assemblies. I understand that people have different views on the coincidence of the two elections in 2015, but I hope the hon. Lady and everyone else will recognise that the Bill does not create the possibility of a clash of elections. Indeed, a clash in 2015 could easily have occurred under the existing arrangements if this Parliament had continued until 2015.
What the Bill does is alert us well ahead of time that there is going to be such a clash. It allows us to anticipate and plan for a date that coincides in that way. As it happens, such clashes will occur only every 20 years. The discussions that we are entering now with the devolved Assemblies, the Presiding Officers and the leaders of the devolved Executives are precisely to take advantage of the fact that we have advance warning of an overlap or a clash, which otherwise we would not have had.
Naomi Long
Although I accept the argument that parliamentary and Assembly elections could have coincided anyway, as might have happened in 2015, is this not a missed opportunity to take a constructive decision on whether such a coinciding is a good or bad thing so that we could then routinely avoid it or make it happen? Instead, it is again being left somewhat to chance.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree that in principle a clash of elections to the devolved Assemblies and to the House of Commons should be avoided. As I have said before in debates, there is a world of difference between the potential for confusion among voters being asked to vote for two different Parliaments that will in turn create two different Executives or Governments—a wholly more serious issue—and the coincidence of such elections with a referendum on a specific yes or no issue, as will be the case with the AV referendum and the elections this May. We have always accepted the fundamental assertion that we need to find a way around that. We have had ongoing discussions and will continue to do so with an open mind. We made the suggestion that the devolved Assemblies should have the power to shift the date of their elections by six months either before or after the general election. That has not been greeted with universal approbation, but it is none the less a sincere attempt on our part to try to find a way forward.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is being generous in giving way. Can he confirm that the provision set out in clause 1(5) will extend the maximum length of a Parliament beyond five years and that therefore it would be the longest fixed-term Parliament in the world, other than Rwanda? There is no fixed-term Parliament in the world of five years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has read the provisions of the Bill correctly, and I think that his point was confirmed by the Minister on Report. On the point about the coincidence of elections, Northern Ireland Office Ministers are conducting separate discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland, where the issues are slightly different. It would be inappropriate for me to prejudge the outcome of those ongoing discussions. We will of course endeavour to keep colleagues on the Opposition Benches informed.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is entirely right that the judgment about how long a Parliament should last is not an exact science. During the debates in Committee, I opted for four years because I felt that that was more appropriate. It would avoid the clashes and mean that we would engage regularly with our electorate, which we should all be doing. It would be important in helping to keep us all in touch with our constituents. Would he say more on the thinking behind the decision to have five years rather than four?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said before, that is the existing maximum and has been for a very long time. It has recently become the norm, as five of the past nine Parliaments stretched to five years, including the previous Parliament. The hon. Gentleman might disagree, but I hope that he will at least accept the legitimacy of the argument that a four-year Parliament, politics being what it is, would naturally incline parties in power to look towards the next election well ahead of that four-year deadline and that government would be arrested and suspended as the party in power positioned itself months or sometimes a year or so before an impending general election, which would curtail considerably the time in which Governments can do difficult and brave things. Five years, however, is clearly a period during which Governments can take difficult and bold decisions that from time to time, as we very well know now, are necessary.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend was asked about clause 1(5) and the length of time between general elections, but my reading of that provision is that it does not extend the life of a Parliament. Parliament will still expire after five years, but the general election has to come within two months after that if it is extended, which is a shorter period than the current maximum.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on the theology of those things. The hon. Member for Rhondda says that he is wrong, but my understanding is that the Bill is fairly clear on that point, even if it a little opaque to me on that very specific point. As my hon. Friend knows, the provisions purely address highly exceptional circumstances that arise for one reason or another, such as unforeseen emergency circumstances. Foot and mouth is an obvious recent example of where it is self-evident that an election simply could not be conducted either practically or politically. That is what we had in mind when we drafted the Bill in those terms.
In conclusion, the Government believe that fixed-term Parliaments represent a simple but absolutely fundamental change: strengthening Parliament, providing stability and moving us towards the new politics that we have all promised the people of Britain. I commend the Bill to the House.
Sadiq Khan
That Bill is being discussed in the other place. It starts again at 3.30 tomorrow.
The hon. Lady should be interested in my next point, however, because the Bill before us also ties the hands of the Conservative party to the Liberal Democrats. With this Bill, their respective fates and identities become inseparable. Make no mistake: the Bill is not for the good of the country; it is for the good of the Ministers on the Treasury Bench. What compounds that outrageous piece of attempted constitutional fixing is the fact they are trying to ram it through at breakneck speed. That urgency is because Back Benchers from both coalition parties are having second thoughts about the issue, so party managers need to get them super-glued together quickly, with no way out.
Throughout the Bill’s passage, we have raised a number of concerns about its content and its scrutiny. I have no problem with the Conservative party being converts to fixed-term Parliaments.
Sadiq Khan
No, I will not. Not to you.
The Liberal Democrats’ policy was for four-year fixed-term Parliaments, but unfortunately the coalition has hijacked a sensible and progressive idea, amended it for its own means and tried to rush through legislation preventing a proper, wide-ranging debate on an important —[Hon. Members: “Give way!”] I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has been in charge of timetabling the Bill, and if he had wanted to speak, he should have allowed more time for debate.
Once again, we will rely on the other place to inject a sense of fairness—
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman should explain why he has changed his mind in relation to his predecessor’s Bill. He will recall that there was insufficient time to allow the Bill introduced by his predecessor—a very good and honourable man—to receive proper debate in the House of Commons. The question that should be asked is why the hon. Gentleman has done a U-turn on that Bill. [Interruption.] The Whip, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), heckles me but if he wants to get to his feet, I am happy to take an intervention.
This sort of Westminster arrogance will not go down well in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh. People in those places will remember the arrogant way in which the Deputy Prime Minister’s deputy, after a number of hours of debate on this issue on day one of the Committee, and after a number of Members had spoken, pulled from his pocket an option to allow devolved Assembly elections to be brought forward by up to six months in the event of their being scheduled at the same time as a general election. There was no consultation and no discussion with us or the devolved Administrations before that. We have heard how unhappy they are with this.
Mr Harper
The right hon. Gentleman knows, as I made clear at the time, that I announced that option in this House first because I thought it proper for Parliament to hear it first. I then wrote to all the party leaders. During the process, I have kept him informed, have placed copies of the correspondence in the House of Commons and have updated the House. At all stages, I have kept this House informed, as is the proper process.
Sadiq Khan
I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to intervene again. Is it not right that a number of colleagues had taken part in the debate and an amendment had been moved, and that it was only towards the end of the evening that he pulled the option out of his pocket?
Mr Harper
I was very keen to do something that the previous Government did not do often: I listened to the debate and to the concerns raised by Members on both sides of the Committee, and then announced to the House what I thought might be a sensible move forward. As I said on Report, colleagues in the devolved Parliament and Assemblies have written back to me to say that they are less than overwhelmed by my proposals. That is why we did not move them on Report. That was a perfectly sensible way to conduct matters.