Coalition Government: Constitution Committee Report
(9 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Jay of Paddington
That this House takes note of the Report of the Constitution Committee on Constitutional implications of coalition government (5th Report, HL Paper 130).
Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)
My Lords, I am particularly pleased to open the debate on this important report in this, the last week of my chairmanship of the Select Committee on the Constitution. The debate gives me the opportunity not only to thank all the witnesses who gave us valuable evidence in our wide-ranging inquiry, but also to express my overall gratitude to everyone associated with the committee during my four years as chairman. It has been a great privilege to work with the senior members of the House who have served on the committee. They have been very assiduous in their activities and made consistently distinguished contributions to our work. I am delighted that several of them are taking part in this debate. As members of the committee we have been extremely well supported, too, by our officials and by our legal and specialist advisers, all of whom have given us first-class assistance and advice. I would like to congratulate them on their work, as well as thank them.
This report is the result of one of the most significant inquiries the Constitution Committee has conducted in this Parliament, and as the Parliament enters its final year its conclusions and recommendations are particularly timely. Today, as noble Lords are well aware, we are constantly told by the party leaders that no one is contemplating the possibility of another hung Parliament in 2015: all are fighting for single-party victory. This may well be the ambition, but is it the reality? The committee naturally understands that, following another unclear election result, much will be determined by the politics of the day. However, we think there should be greater clarity about a number of constitutional questions before the end of this Parliament, and certainly before polling day in 2015. The opportunities for so-called “muddling through” in a traditional British way should be much reduced. Of course, the date of the next election is so certain because the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is now in operation. That Act has been the backdrop to the present coalition Government and to our inquiry, and I will return to its effect on the issues we examined later in my speech.
We looked at other changes in constitutional practice, which, for better or worse, may become permanent changes even when a future majority Government are in power. The committee’s intention is for our report to offer analysis and conclusions which should provide valuable guidance on what could become a more regular feature of British politics. As your Lordships appreciate, with an unwritten constitution many of the rules and conventions of Parliament and government are based on precedent. It is worth reminding the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, reminded the committee, that this is the first peacetime coalition Administration since 1931, and the first ever coalition that has been the product of arithmetic following a general election. The last hung Parliament was in 1974 and that decade—the 1970s—experienced both minority Governments and arrangements on supply and confidence between parties in the House of Commons—arrangements which some have suggested sit more comfortably with our long-held conventions of Cabinet government.
The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, with his personal experience of 1970s government, was one of our witnesses who supported this position and I am pleased that he is going to make a contribution to the debate in the gap. It remains to be seen if contemporary experience encourages today’s politicians to look at other solutions for government after an inconclusive election.
Our report covers four main areas. First, we look at the process of government formation after a hung election. Secondly, we examine proposals which aim to enhance the legitimacy of future coalition agreements. Thirdly, we consider how government and Parliament have and should operate under a coalition. Finally we address certain issues that we think will arise in the next few months, towards the end of the Parliament.
I begin with government formation. The House is aware that a succession of one-party Governments elected with large majorities has produced a modern expectation that Administrations change very quickly. The brutal, if effective, so-called “removal van in Downing Street” approach has meant that Prime Ministers are usually in their new place in less than 24 hours after the polls close. Evidently that was not the case in 2010, when negotiations took five days to conclude. We were told in evidence that all the parties felt under great pressure, particularly from the financial markets and the media, to conclude negotiations as quickly as possible. There was pressure on the Prime Minister to resign swiftly, with press headlines such as “The squatter in No. 10”, yet a period of five days for negotiation was by international standards very short. We concluded that although a Government should be formed as promptly as possible, five days should certainly not be seen as a template period for government formation after future hung elections. We were concerned by the lack of public and media understanding about the time that it takes to form a Government in these circumstances.
In particular, our witnesses told us that it was not only perfectly constitutionally proper for an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until the identity of a new Government was clear but that there is in some sense an expectation that he will do so. The Constitution Committee felt that—if only, frankly, to protect themselves as well as improve public understanding—the party leaders and managers should try to get these points across, particularly to the media, before the next election in May 2015.
One notable senior figure who thought ahead about the possibility of an inconclusive election was the then Cabinet Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, who I am very pleased to see contributing to today’s debate. Several of our witnesses paid tribute to his foresight in starting to plan for the outcome of the election. Importantly, arrangements were put in place for Civil Service support to be made available to any parties that were involved in post-election negotiations. In the event, the Conservative and Liberal negotiators took up logistical support only; they did not take up the offer of advice or briefings. On the other hand, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, whose contribution I look forward to, about the experience in Scotland where the parties had fully taken up the offer of Civil Service support and found it very helpful indeed. Our report recommends that official advice should be automatically available after future hung Parliaments at Westminster. Clearly, it would be for the parties to decide what level of support they would take up but it should certainly not be up to the incumbent Prime Minister to grant this opportunity. We recommend that the current Government should commit in advance to make Civil Service support available, if necessary. I hope that the Minister will be able to give that commitment today.
Today’s coalition Government have often been questioned about their democratic legitimacy. No one voted for a coalition and it is argued that the coalition agreement of 2010 does not have the same status as the manifesto of a party that won a majority at the election. Some of our witnesses, albeit those from an academic rather than a political standpoint, suggested ways of closing a possible constitutional gap in legitimacy. One proposal was that after an election, the House of Commons should hold an investiture vote for a new Prime Minister; another that the Commons should vote formally to approve a coalition agreement. The committee did not accept these ideas. We thought that a prime ministerial investiture vote would risk making our system of government even more presidential and concluded that a traditional vote on the first Queen’s Speech is the appropriate test of whether the House of Commons has confidence in the Government and therefore approves a coalition programme.
I turn to those parts of the report which deal with the way in which the coalition Government have impacted on our constitutional understandings about how government and Parliament work in practice. Undoubtedly, the most dramatic departure from constitutional norms under this Government has been, as we heard, the frequent breaches of the convention of collective ministerial responsibility—a convention which is at the heart of Cabinet government. Noble Lords will recall that breaches have occurred on significant matters, such as the saga of the constituency boundary review where the Deputy Prime Minister unilaterally told Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to vote against a measure which, until then, had been seen as agreed government policy. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, whose involvement in this debate I am also grateful for, said in his evidence to us that that was “outrageous”.
However, on the Conservative side we have also seen the remarkable event of Ministers being allowed to abstain on a vote on the Queen’s Speech and therefore in effect not being required to defend the Government’s agreed legislative programme. Other witnesses spoke of the debate on the report by Lord Justice Leveson on the press, when the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister spoke successively from the same House of Commons Dispatch Box, but on different sides of the issue. Noble Lords will recall a similar situation in this House. There have been many more examples, yet in the current Parliament no Minister has resigned or been asked to resign because they have not been prepared to accept agreed government policy.
The committee considered whether this meant that collective responsibility should be explicitly set aside under a coalition Government. We also debated whether the principle should be generally downgraded in 21st-century politics, even when a majority Government are in power. We concluded that this would be a fundamental constitutional mistake. After all, the convention of collective responsibility is primarily important because it enables Parliament fully to hold the Government responsible for all their actions and policies. It means that Ministers cannot wriggle out of responsibility by saying that a certain decision was taken by another Minister and that they had nothing to do with it. Moreover, the committee agreed that the process of collective decision-making, which is an essential part of the convention, is more likely to lead to good government than making decisions in isolation.
I remind the House that when the coalition was formed, the agreement identified five issues on which the two parties would be permitted to express different views. Processes were set out whereby this could happen but, since then, divergence between the parties on other issues has clearly happened without any proper process being followed. I would say that the present row on education policy is probably a vivid example. The committee, of course, recognised that it is inevitable that two different parties will disagree on certain issues but we think that the convention is sufficiently important for collective responsibility to be set aside only as a last resort. We recommend that when one party wants to ignore the convention it should take the matter to Cabinet, so that it is the Cabinet as a whole that agrees to set aside the convention. This should happen only on specific issues, and preferably for a limited period. We think that a process along these lines should be set out in any future coalition agreement. Those who argue that the lack of collective responsibility we have seen in the present Parliament simply illustrates the unsuitability of coalition government in our system undoubtedly have a point. Certainly, given what has happened in the last four years there is a need to be more explicit and transparent about arrangements in future.
Turning to the effect of the coalition on your Lordships’ House, we found one perhaps unexpected side-effect: the relative lack of senior Ministers in this House. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, told us he had hoped that the number of senior Ministers in the Lords would increase over the Parliament, but in fact the opposite has happened. He regretted that, and so do we. Perhaps the noble Lord will expand on this point in his speech this evening.
The committee examined how the Salisbury/Addison convention should apply during coalitions, and we conclude that a coalition agreement does not have the same mandate from the electorate as the manifesto of a majority party. Therefore, the Salisbury/Addison convention does not apply to measures in a coalition agreement. Again, however, the committee recognised the political reality that a practice has evolved whereby the Lords does not normally block government Bills, whether they are in a manifesto or not. We saw no reason to dilute this practice when there is a coalition but still thought it important to state that a coalition agreement does not constitutionally equal a manifesto commitment.
The last chapter of our report looks at the final months leading up to the general election. It is worth reminding ourselves that, in the next year, we will be dealing with two unprecedented factors. First, we know exactly when polling day will be and, secondly, we have a peacetime coalition Government who proclaim that they will stay together until 5 May next year. The committee’s immediate conclusion is that the certainty about dates should cancel the need for the often unsatisfactory period of frantic legislation at the end of a Parliament. The legislation in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech in June should be planned so that the so-called wash-up is washed out. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as a previous Leader of the House, agreed with us. As I said, the prospect of two parties campaigning against each other while running the Government together is unprecedented and raises a number of political questions, which again the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, may shed light on from his experience in Scotland.
Once Parliament is dissolved and the formal campaign begins, the constitutional guidance on the purdah period is clear in the Cabinet manual. Our report emphasises that this guidance must be adhered to. When it comes to the different parties in government receiving advice from civil servants, we propose that a party with no Ministers in a particular department should be entitled to have contact with officials in that department in the same way as the Official Opposition would. This would prevent any party being disadvantaged in the run-up to the election.
As the committee’s report has demonstrated—although I have not covered every point—the constitutional effects of having a coalition Government have been profound. It should not of course be assumed that future hung Parliaments would automatically lead to a coalition Government; but, frankly, it would be naive for the political parties and others not to be taking that possibility into account.
I hope your Lordships appreciate that this inquiry by the Select Committee was extensive, and included evidence from a very wide range of authoritative witnesses. The report includes substantial analysis and practical recommendations on the basis both of our deliberations and the evidence we received. We published in mid-February and the report was designed to coincide with the conclusion of this parliamentary Session and the start of pre-election preparations. I am pleased that we have been able to debate it today, before Prorogation. However, I say to the Minister that I am extremely disappointed that the Government have failed to give any response to the report so far. It is a report of current interest and importance, yet the Government again have ignored the understood guidance, which asks for a response to Select Committee reports within two months of publication. Frankly, I regard that as not simply discourteous but, in this case, irresponsible.
During this Parliament the Constitution Committee has been disappointed by the Government in this way several times. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, can offer detailed comment on our recommendations when he replies tonight, but I am afraid that whatever is said will not be a substitute for a proper, written, official response.
I do not want to conclude on that disagreeable note; so I end by renewing my thanks to all who contributed to the report and to those who will speak in the debate today. It has been a great privilege for me to serve as chairman of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. It has also been enormously enjoyable, and I look forward to the debate. I beg to move.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to be speaking immediately after the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. Perhaps I may be the first publicly to pay tribute to her time as chairman of such a distinguished committee as the House of Lords Constitution Committee. She has served with distinction, but she has also served at a most fascinating and interesting time. The noble Baroness reminded us that she has served for four years, which is a long time. In those four years we have seen constitutional innovation, to which the report alludes several times over.
As the noble Baroness explained, I gave evidence to the committee and read its report. One of the reasons I wanted to speak in this debate was to say how good I thought its conclusions were. It is extremely clear and well-written, and therefore effective. I am sorry to hear that the Government were unable to give a written response but I have great faith that my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire will be able to say that he, too, on behalf of the Government, thinks this a very positive report. There is much to take away, not just by politicians but by senior members of the Civil Service, particularly the Cabinet Office, if this thing—this coalition—ever happens again.
It was useful for the noble Baroness to remind us, as is written in the first paragraph of the report, what my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth said about this being the first coalition to come about because of the arithmetic calculation after a general election. That demonstrates just how rare a coalition is in the United Kingdom. We have no reason to believe that it will necessarily happen again in the near future. It probably will not happen again, but I dare say that we ought, like the boy scouts, to be ever ready and ever prepared for it to happen again.
In May 2010 I was one of those who were initially sceptical about the desirability of having a coalition. I felt that my right honourable friend David Cameron probably could have carried on a minority Government, but that was not the prevailing view. It was said that people generally liked the idea of politicians sorting out their differences in private before coming to Parliament with an agreed set of proposals. Whether that is true in practice remains to be seen, but it is true that people like that idea. What else is true is that this coalition has been remarkably successful, particularly in barring the noises off, and has had huge success in reform of some of the most important parts of the public sector—education, welfare and health. What Government, within 12 months of a general election, would not be delighted to hear that the United Kingdom now has the fastest-growing economy in the G7; that there are more people in work today in Britain than ever before; that unemployment is falling; that the twin scourges of inflation and interest rates, which most of us have lived with for most of our lives, are at rock bottom; and that month by month, year by year, the deficit is being cut and we can see, over the horizon, a time when it will be eradicated? That is a success for the coalition.
I have no idea whether there will be another coalition Government. If there is, the only point with which I took minor issue was on the formation of a Government. It is important for the nation to have a Prime Minister and to know who that Prime Minister is as quickly as possible. We should not create a system that allows for a Prime Minister to linger on in 10 Downing Street for too long. If there is no pressure to come to an agreement on who the new Prime Minister should be, it could drag on for a very long time indeed. I cannot imagine that it was a pleasant experience for Mr Brown as Prime Minister to be twiddling his thumbs among the packing cases, waiting for the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party to reach some sort of agreement. There is all the difference between the parties agreeing that there should be a coalition and that therefore there should be a Prime Minister, which should be announced as soon as possible, and for the Palace to do the all-important ceremony with which it needs to be involved, and the final troth being made on a coalition agreement and, most importantly, on what the terms of the first Queen’s Speech should be. I agree with the idea that there should be a longer time-lag between the general election and the Queen’s Speech. A period of 12 days was mentioned, which is perfectly sensible.
I want to make four observations on the report with regard to the House of Lords. The first relates to paragraph 145 and the Salisbury convention. The report admirably says and the noble Baroness repeated it:
“We recognise that a practice has evolved that the House of Lords does not normally block government bills, whether they are in a manifesto or not. There is no reason why this practice should not apply when there is a coalition government”.
I quite agree. In fact, that is my understanding of what the Salisbury convention has become and how it has developed over many years. There is a faint absurdity in this unelected Chamber denying ourselves the right to debate a Bill which has already been passed by the elected Chamber and we should not do it. One can imagine the truly appalling circumstances in which the House of Lords needs to reserve that right, but as a matter of course that should be part of the Salisbury convention. That is why I very much regret that in this Parliament it was the Official Opposition who supported the wrecking amendments on the Health and Social Care Bill. That was an extremely foolish and dangerous thing to do and should not have been done. When the Labour Party eventually gets back into government it should beware that an irresponsible group in the House of Lords does not hang that around its neck.
The second issue that I want to draw attention to is that of collective responsibility and the boundaries issue, which is eminently well described in paragraph 71. The paragraph refers to the evidence that I gave. I said that it was a “dirty trick”. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said that it was,
“a flagrant breach of an agreement”,
although he happily conceded that he was delighted that the Liberal Democrats had done so.
Either way—and I stand by what I said—what I dislike intensely in paragraph 71 is how David Laws MP prays in aid the collapse of the House of Lords Bill in the House of Commons. I just want to say that this is a desperate rewriting of history. The House of Lord Bill was passed in the Commons on a huge majority at Second Reading. Nearly 80% of MPs voted in favour of it. What happened thereafter was a failure of the Government and of the Minister who was responsible for it, the Deputy Prime Minister, to reach an agreement, particularly with the Opposition, on the programme motion. That was not the fault of a few dozen Conservative Members of Parliament. As we all know in this House, this issue was always going to be controversial and could never have been passed by one party acting on its own. It could have been passed only by agreement. If the Deputy Prime Minister had spent more time early on in the Parliament working with the shadow Cabinet and the Labour Party, he might have got that agreement.
I cannot help thinking that the issue of House of Lords reform became a convenient argument, and that is all, and that even if House of Lords reform had gone through, the Liberal Democrats would have found a different excuse for reneging on the deal that they had struck in the coalition agreement.
Baroness Grender (LD)
May I clarify something with the noble Lord? Is it not the case that the Prime Minister took the decision to withdraw from pushing ahead with the vote on the programme motion?
Lord Strathclyde
I am sure that is the case, but only on the basis that he knew it was going to be lost. He knew that the Minister responsible for the Bill could not guarantee that they had support from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. That is why it collapsed.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Is not the point here that up until now it has been accepted that it is an almost sacred duty on the part of Governments to implement Boundary Commission reports? The moment that we have political parties fiddling around with them for their party advantage, all is lost. What happened was therefore quite reprehensible and disgraceful.
Lord Strathclyde
Even more than that, my Lords, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth will remember well, for years and years the Liberal Democrats would lecture us and the people of this country on the monstrous unfairness of the electoral system, but they themselves then ensured that we now have the most unfair system because, as my noble friend suggested, they blocked the entirely correct work of the Boundary Commission.
The third point that I want to make is about Lords Ministers. Again, I very much agree with the conclusions of the report. The point is that over the past 30 or 40 years we have had many eminent and senior Ministers coming from the House of Lords, most recently under the Labour Government. This is good not just for the House of Lords but for the Government; it is good for the process of government to have senior Peers with a lot of experience—outside politics sometimes—who play a part. I understand the pressures within a coalition to provide ministerial seats in the House of Commons, but I have to say that in May 2010 when I went to Downing Street and was invited by the Prime Minister to take on the burden of Leader of the House of Lords, which of course I was delighted to do, I asked how many Liberal Democrats I should expect and I was very surprised to be told: absolutely none, because there had been an agreement with the Deputy Prime Minister that all the Liberal Democrat Ministers would be made in the House of Commons. There was a terrible silence as I realised that it was impossible to come back and sit on the Front Bench without my noble friend Lord McNally and other Liberal Democrats who have served so ably. There was a quick discussion and I am delighted to say that on the Front Bench in the coalition we have had a very effective team of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives working together. My regret is that very few of the Liberal Democrats are actually paid for the work that they do, particularly not the Whips. I very much hope that, whether we have another coalition or return to single-party government, more senior Peers will be represented in government as Ministers. That will ultimately be to the benefit of the nation.
The last point that I want to make is about the wash-up. That is an ugly little phrase to explain something that is extremely necessary and, on the whole, works effectively. It was much abused, I am sorry to say, in 2010 by the outgoing Labour Government—with some collusion, I have to accept, from the then Opposition. The purpose of the wash-up is to tidy up Bills as quickly as possible with the agreement of the whole House. It should not be for shovelling through vast swathes of legislation unscrutinised, undebated and not even discussed or indeed improved, and I hope that we do not see those days again. They could be circumstances if there is some emergency legislation that needs to be passed quickly but, again, that should always be done with the agreement of the usual channels in both Houses.
I have spoken for far longer than I intended to. Perhaps I may just finish by saying that, notwithstanding what I think has generally been the success in government of this coalition, I hope that we will not need another one but, if we do, that it should work effectively and smoothly in the interests of the good governance of this country. I think that the reading of this report by the Government and the Civil Service will be an effective way of ensuring that that happens.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for the presentation to your Lordships’ House today of this excellent report from the Constitution Committee. On behalf of perhaps all the devolved Administrations over recent years, I thank the committee for the opportunity to give evidence and to speak in this debate.
In addition to the experience over the past four years of coalition government in the United Kingdom, of course, the UK has also seen coalition government in different forms in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over recent years. I was very pleased that the committee was willing to take that experience and use it, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, did in preparing for and then executing the discussions after the 2010 general election.
The committee’s report is thoughtful and balanced. I, too, hope that the Government and the Opposition will respond to the recommendations that have been made. I do not think that any of them should leave it until closer to the general election to do so. I hope that as well as getting a response today from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, at some point we will also receive a proper written response from the Government and that the official Opposition will consider this report and make public their views on it, too; all the political parties here have to address the issues that have been raised.
When I gave evidence to the committee I was reminded of an article I had written that was published on 15 May 2010, entitled “Ten tips for making coalition work”, based on my experience in Scotland shortly after the coalition agreement had been reached by Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg. That experience came from being part of the first Cabinet in Scotland in 1999 and the coalition agreement that I like to describe as the “Add the Liberal Democrats on” coalition—because essentially Donald Dewar and colleagues had been in government and moved into the Scottish Parliament but did not have a majority there so they worked hard to secure the agreement of the Liberal Democrats, led by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to form a coalition for the first four years, which managed to survive three different First Ministers and a whole series of crises. It saw out its four years and implemented a raft of legislation that perhaps would have been seen as very ambitious back in May 1999 but made a real difference to Scotland.
Then came a very different coalition. Because of the way in which it came together it was essentially stronger, based on two manifestos that had really been written for the Scottish Parliament and that were about what was happening in Scotland at the time. The politicians knew each other and the Parliament well, and what they could achieve. In 2003 that coalition made a huge difference over four years in building a more confident and successful, and a healthier, Scotland.
The 10 tips that I outlined in that article focused primarily on three issues. One was trust: not just personal trust between—in my case—the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, but also between the parties to ensure that there was a working relationship on the Back Benches as well as on the Front Benches. Secondly, there was the important issue of dealing with compromises and disputes: the flexibility required in government to respond to events and to seize opportunities as they arise if they have not been foreseen. Thirdly, there was the absolutely vital issue of direction and a sense of purpose. Within that there was the necessity for a one-for-all, all-for-one approach to collective responsibility and the work of Ministers.
Had those tips not been very real in our coalition when I was First Minister in Scotland, it would not have been possible to lead the UK on the ban on smoking in public places or deal with a controversial issue such as in-migration to help reverse Scotland’s population decline and improve our economic performance so that we were ahead of the UK in GDP growth rather than behind it. We also made huge changes to our justice system and a legislative programme between 2003 and 2007—changes that were long overdue. Having a strong coalition can be effective, but it needs to have those key elements of trust, flexibility and collective responsibility to make it work well. That is why I agree strongly with the report from the Constitution Committee. I readily endorse all but one of the recommendations, and I will draw attention to three issues in particular.
The first is the role of the Civil Service in advance of and after an election. This will be a very real issue next year as the preparations for the general election get closer, and then in the post-election scenario that could well lead to similar discussions taking place again. The recommendation in paragraph 40 has my full support based on the experience in Scotland, and in London in 2010.
The second issue is one to which my noble friend Lady Jay did not refer: access to papers in future Administrations. A recommendation in paragraph 131 sets out the procedure that could be used following these five years of coalition government in order to ensure that both parties are treated fairly in the issue of access to ministerial papers under future Governments. This arrangement has been broken by the Scottish National Party Government in Scotland during these past seven years—I think quite disgracefully. Therefore, I enthusiastically support the recommendation of the committee. This issue should be agreed in advance of the general election in 2015, and whatever agreement is reached should be adhered to by whatever party is in government afterwards. The situation in Scotland today, where Nationalist Ministers see the papers of previous Administrations in advance of the previous Administration being consulted about public access to those papers, is disgraceful and should not be repeated in Whitehall or at Westminster.
The third issue that I want to mention is that of collective responsibility. In paragraphs 77 to 79, the committee makes valuable recommendations about the operation of collective responsibility. Over the past four years, we have seen the difficulties that can arise when collective responsibility is not adhered to, either publicly or in many cases privately and off the record under this coalition Government. One of the strengths of our coalition in Scotland was an adherence to collective responsibility, not just in public but in private, too. There were almost no instances of individual Ministers briefing against each other off the record to newspapers during my time as First Minister. That should be the case in all coalition Governments, so I strongly support the committee’s recommendations.
However, I do not agree with the committee on the parliamentary endorsement of the coalition agreement. Collective responsibility would be strengthened if a coalition agreement was put to a vote in Parliament, in addition to the vote on the Queen’s Speech and the legislative programme. So there I depart from the committee’s recommendations in paragraph 60, where it does not support that approach. I think that a parliamentary endorsement of the coalition agreement would be a very good thing.
There are 12 months to go until the 2015 general election. I can say right now that being in a coalition Government will get more difficult over those 12 months. I may be stating the obvious, but the final 12 months will be a real challenge for all concerned. However, it is not impossible for a coalition to stick together to the very end. I predicted in May 2010 that this coalition would stick together and I believe that it will. If those involved are mature enough to be able to set out mechanisms for working behind the scenes as well as in public and to continue to prioritise their programme for government, this coalition will last the full five years.
I hope that it does not experience too many difficulties during the election period. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and I did have an experience in April 2003 when we had to deal with an important emergency issue and make a decision, breaking off from the campaign trail and abusing each other in public to make an agreement in private to ensure that school meals in Scotland were adequately provided for following a change in the UK Budget. There will be moments when people have to talk in private and in public, but they should also be perfectly capable of campaigning against each other publicly and at the same time putting a proper choice to the voters for the next Government.
Like everybody else, I presume, I would have preferred that Labour had had a majority in the Scottish Parliament when I was First Minister, and we could have implemented more of our programme and less of the programme of others; but we did not. We had to compromise. We had to work with the result from the electorate. Despite the fact that at the time we were working in unusual circumstances, bringing together coalitions for the first time in the UK in peacetime, the reality was that we made a huge difference by putting the interests of Scotland ahead of our parties and making that Government work.
There was at least one benefit aside from implementing the programme. In a coalition government, some of the extremes that you see in a single-party Government—legislation not being properly thought through, the instincts of Prime Ministers or First Ministers going ahead of common sense and due deliberation inside the party, never mind outside it—are not there because the challenge between two parties in a coalition can improve in decision-making. While it may be frustrating and difficult at times, there can be benefits from a coalition Government; we should not put ourselves in a situation where we would regret or feel too disappointed about losing an opportunity to govern alone after the next general election in the UK. The country should come first.
The UK has many proud traditions that help us govern successfully and set an example of governance around the world. The protocols and conventions—parliamentary accountability, the principle of collective government responsibility and all the other issues addressed in this report—are examples of the way in which coalition government can work for the people for the country, not just for the politicians who assume their positions in that Government. I readily endorse the recommendations of the report and hope that the Government and the Official Opposition will take them on board in advance of May 2015.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I cannot help but start by thanking our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, for the service that she has given to the House in chairing the Constitution Committee. Her seniority, her experience and, above all, her effortless charm in keeping us to the disciplines—there are quite strong personalities around the committee—were in play in almost every meeting. We will miss her. It will be very different to serve on the committee without the noble Baroness.
In 2010, I had the honour of being the first Liberal to speak from the government Benches in a new Parliament in the post-war period. The last time the Liberal Party had come into government was in the 1930s. Therefore, it has not been entirely surprising to me that Britain’s constitutional conventions over the past 80 years or so have been formed on the basis of single-party government. We had much material to work on in this inquiry but, as our report points out, the pluralism of party politics that the public have now embraced is a trend that may well continue for some time. Our inquiry therefore had not just to look carefully at the events of the past four years but to anticipate other permutations and formulations that might be thrown up in future.
In my coverage of the report, I want to highlight just a few points. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, gave a comprehensive view of most of our findings but, particularly in the light of the peroration of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, it is important for me to illustrate and highlight some of the more dramatic moments in our deliberations on this report.
I was a member of the Constitution Committee at the time of its report on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. While I heard all the arguments, I continue to be slightly surprised that the idea of a fixed term continues to frustrate constitutionalists in some quarters. If it affects government formation negotiations by making parties look at alternatives to minority government, surely that is a good thing. Minority government is the antithesis of the stability in decision-making that is needed for the economy, business and policy planning; in my own area of work, it is seen as extremely damaging to the conduct of foreign affairs. That is not the reason why the public are opposed to it, but we also know that the public are opposed to repeat elections. I therefore agree with two of our witnesses, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and Oliver Letwin, who told us that having fixed-term Parliaments allowed Governments to plan for five years, thereby enabling them to think long term.
I also emphasise the importance that the committee placed on the right versus the duty of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until a successor is identified, particularly as we come up to the 2015 general election. The one observation that I would make in that regard is that, given the language deployed in the media in referring to an incumbent Prime Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, gave us some of the colourful highlights relating to the previous Prime Minister—it would be extremely helpful if the Cabinet Office undertook to advise the media on the desirability of this expectation and its place in our constitutional framework.
Let me turn to the convention of collective ministerial responsibility. We had a lively discussion with experts, witnesses and among ourselves about this during the inquiry. The report mentions the departures from collective ministerial responsibility as seen in 2013 when the two parties of the coalition voted in opposite Lobbies on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. That decision was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister some six or seven months earlier as a response to the collapse of the House of Lords Reform Bill, so it did not come entirely as a surprise. I would have thought that, given the self-interest of the Conservative Party in those proposed boundary changes, seven months of reflection on what might happen might have led to the Conservatives reappraising their position on House of Lords reform, but it was not to be and we had a good debate about it.
The committee felt strongly that collective responsibility has served our constitution well and therefore emphasised that breaches of it should be rare and only ever a last resort. Moreover, it went on to recommend that a proper process should be put in place to govern any setting aside of the responsibility, stating:
“Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
While I entirely agree with the recommendations of the committee as set out in paragraphs 77 to 79 where there is single-party government—particularly as collective responsibility was breached in recent memory in quite significant terms by the Labour Government—I do not think that we have been entirely realistic in these recommendations where they apply to coalitions. For example, the duty of the Cabinet as a whole to resolve differences is somewhat difficult when five members of the Cabinet are from one party and nearly 20 are drawn from the other. It is self-evident that the majority can always outvote the minority. My preference would be for the pragmatism of David Laws MP, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, referred, who felt that when agreements are made and subsequently diverted from there are naturally consequences for other agreements.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has contested this version of history, so let me put to him that in my view the more fundamental breakdown of collective responsibility was witnessed in the House of Commons debate on the Queen’s Speech in 2013 when one side of the Government—the Conservatives—tabled an amendment on their own Government’s programme. The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, referred to this in her speech. The PM went on to give those Conservative rebels a free vote, although it was evidently not an issue of conscience, and we had the spectacle of junior Ministers voting against their own Government without any consequences. Our report states:
“Dr Stephen Barber … said, that ‘the acquiescence by the Prime Minister to allow ministers to vote “against” provisions in the Queen’s Speech ... is constitutionally more serious’ than the division between coalition partners over the boundary review amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. This is because of the role of the Queen’s Speech as a vote of confidence in the Government … previously any minister who declined to support the government on the Queen’s Speech would have been expected to resign”.
In the instance of the Conservative rebellion on the Queen’s Speech, I took the opportunity to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, when on 9 April he came to have his annual evidence session with the committee, how that had transpired. If I recall correctly—I have not seen the transcript yet—the Deputy Prime Minister told the committee that the issue had not been raised in a Cabinet committee and was not even discussed in the quad. Therefore, in terms of a rebellion where the Prime Minister gave the Conservative rebels a free vote, the committee’s recommendation that these sorts of things must be discussed and a resolution must be sought within Cabinet clearly could not have applied, because the issue was not raised in Cabinet.
The last point that I will make about collective responsibility again relates to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for whom I have the profoundest respect, as he well knows from my interactions with him. The anecdote that he just told on how, but for his intervention, there were not meant to be any Liberal Democrat Ministers in the House of Lords was an example of a little breach of collective responsibility. If that sort of evidence were to come out, I would have expected it to be in the noble Lord’s memoirs, which we would be rushing off to Waterstones to buy. Saying it first in giving evidence to our committee and repeating it in the Chamber of the House stretches collective responsibility, because that discussion clearly took place in Cabinet. I fear that the noble Lord wishes to come back on that.
Lord Strathclyde
I shall say two things in my defence. First, I had not been appointed, so there was no collective responsibility issue. Secondly, and perhaps more important—this is something that I did not say but should have said—this was born out of a misunderstanding by the Deputy Prime Minister about how Ministers are appointed in the House of Lords. Given that the Liberal Democrats are so deeply federalised, he assumed that it was an issue that would be solved in the House of Lords, which is perhaps rather a different slant from the one that I gave in the first place.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I am sure that we all appreciate that clarification. Nevertheless, I am not sure that any of us will not use it to give Mr Clegg a hard ride next time, if there is a next time.
Let me conclude by coming to the role of the Civil Service. I will touch on this issue merely to say that both we and the Institute for Government, in its more extensive study, heard about the difficulties encountered by a junior partner in government, represented by a junior Minister, when commissioning policy advice. I wholeheartedly agree with the committee’s recommendation that Ministers should be able to commission confidential briefings from officials within their departments for the purpose of developing policy for the next Parliament without those briefings being disclosed to Ministers from their coalition partners. If this practice were not formalised, we would be in the invidious position whereby, although the Opposition would have access to Civil Service advice, as would the party that hosted the Secretary of State in the department, the Lib Dems, where they had only a junior Minister, would not have access to policy advice. That cannot be right. I look forward to the Government’s response on that matter and join the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, in expressing disappointment that the Government have not been able to provide a response before the debate today. I can only assume that the Government have failed to come to a collective view on this.
To conclude, it was a fascinating inquiry. Our witnesses were extremely knowledgeable and, particularly the political ones, often passionately engaged with the issues. I hope that the Cabinet Office will take the opportunity to act on the recommendations of this report. In so doing, it will lend clarity in future scenarios, when the public may yet again choose coalition government. The report’s recommendations on collective responsibility stand for single-party government as well, so the report contributes overall to good and accountable government.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the Constitution Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on this excellent report. If it is to be her swan-song as chairman of the committee, it is a fitting culmination of a series of reports by the committee, which have been very valuable and, in this case, raise issues that need to be considered before the next general election—which I think it is more probable than some previous speakers have thought may result in another coalition.
As the noble Baroness said, the present coalition has changed our constitutional conventions—I was glad to hear her say constitutional conventions, not constitution—in some significant and surprising ways. The first example, to which reference has not been made tonight, was, of course, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I opposed this in your Lordships’ House. If the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats chose to make an agreement about the timing of the next general election, that was their choice, but a number of us felt that they had no need or right to bind future Governments. Now we are seeing the problems caused by the fixed term. Having exhausted the measures in the coalition agreement, the Government are finding it difficult to agree on new policies—and they will find it increasingly difficult to do so as they seek to demonstrate their separateness in the year leading up to the general election.
As a result, we are already seeing that Parliament has very thin gruel to work on. We await the programme in the Queen’s Speech for the next Session with no lively expectation that it will be substantial. Meanwhile the Government are looking divided and weak, more concerned with washing their dirty linen in public than with running the country. If I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, we have heard a certain amount of that sort of recrimination already in the speeches tonight—and that is nothing compared with what we will get over the course of the next year. I think a case could be made that the country would have been better served by bringing this Parliament to an end now so that a new Government could be elected with a fresh mandate.
I want to concentrate the remainder of my remarks on preparations for the next Government and the role of the Civil Service in the lead-up to the general elections, to which reference has been made. When the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, and I gave evidence to the Constitution Committee in its preparation of this report, we emphasised two things. First, there should be a level playing field between all three main parties, with their being treated equally and having equal access to advice. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, referred to that. Secondly, we suggested that the scope of the confidential discussions between the main political parties and the Civil Service should be extended somewhat so that the Civil Service could give advice on the parties’ plans, particularly on the practicability of their implementation, and that the Civil Service should not just be in listening mode.
The Institute for Government has recently produced two very sensible reports on this subject, in which it makes similar points. It has drawn attention to the dilemma in which civil servants may find themselves when there are two main parties in government and one main party in opposition. The two parties in government will have diverging approaches to policy as the election draws near—and, as has been said, they may want to keep some of their ideas confidential from their partners in government. The Institute for Government rightly said that civil servants in this situation need clear guidance on how to deal with that problem. What should that guidance say?
During the period leading up to the general election, the Government must continue to govern and are entitled to full assistance from the Civil Service on any matter of government policy. So it seems to me that a clear distinction needs to be made between what the Government continue to do as government and what the political parties are preparing as parties. In other words, the Civil Service must continue to give full support to what is decided by the Government as matters of collective responsibility, and that requires making it quite clear what those matters are that have been decided by collective responsibility. But when the parties go their separate ways in preparing proposals for their manifestos, the Civil Service should act as it normally would in relation to political parties in pre-election mode. This should not mean that it can give no advice on party proposals; as I said, there would be advantage in their being given such advice, particularly on practicability. But all three political parties should be treated in this respect in the same way.
As far as the parties within the Government are concerned, this will put extra weight on distinguishing between what decisions are made by collective responsibility and what are not. Clear procedures need to be put in place to distinguish between the two. It has been reported that the Prime Minister has decided that confidential discussions between the Civil Service and the Opposition can start six months before polling day—namely, in the autumn. So there is plenty of time for this guidance to be put in place.
Before the last general election, as has been said, the Cabinet Office, under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, performed a very useful service in publishing a draft chapter for the Cabinet Office manual on the rules of the game in the event of no party gaining an overall majority in the election. That publication in draft provided an opportunity for outside observers, including Select Committees, to comment on those rules of the game. This achieved a much greater understanding and acceptance of the conventions than there would otherwise have been, and that was very valuable in the uncertain days immediately following the general election.
I hope that the Cabinet Office will similarly publish draft guidance for consultation on the role of the Civil Service in the lead-up to the general election. If that is to be done, and the discussions are to start in October, that cannot be long delayed now. Perhaps the Minister in replying will be able to give the House some information on what the Government intend in that respect—information that would have been included, no doubt, in the Government’s formal response to the committee’s report but which now needs to be made public.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, my first task is to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, for her admirable introduction and for the manner in which she has chaired the Constitution Committee during all the time that I have served on it. She has done so with great effectiveness, judicious fairness and sensitivity to the views of all members of the committee, whatever their political backgrounds. We are also fortunate to have been served by special advisers and policy analysts of outstanding quality and expertise and excellent clerks. I add my thanks to all of them.
I want to concentrate on collective ministerial responsibility and cabinet government, subjects on which we laid particular emphasis in our report. We did so partly because of the strength of the views expressed by our witnesses, academic and political. The Ministerial Code, Cabinet Manual and the coalition agreement all state that the principle of collective responsibility applies,
“save where it is explicitly set aside”.
The coalition Government’s programme for government specified five issues where the parties in the coalition might adopt different positions. They are set out in paragraph 68 of our report. The convention of collective responsibility is constitutionally important for two main reasons. First, the process of collective decision-making within government makes it more likely that better decisions are reached. The second is that it enables Parliament to hold the Government as a whole responsible for their policies, decisions and actions. Collective responsibility also imbues a Government and, indeed, Parliament, with authority. When the discipline it imposes is departed from, the authority is undermined.
We fully recognise, of course, that the parties in a coalition will not agree on everything and that from time to time they will differ. Any noble Lord who has attended this Parliament would find it very difficult to be blind to that fact. However, we say that,
“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible … Given its constitutional importance, the setting aside of the convention … should be rare, and only ever a last resort”.
We had hoped to discuss the issues with the Deputy Prime Minister before we concluded our deliberations but because of a family funeral that meeting could not take place. However, on 9 April, after the report had been published, the committee pursued the issue in the annual evidence session that we have with him. The Deputy Prime Minister said that one consequence of coalition government had been a,
“rejuvenation of collective decision-making and collective discussion within government, because you have to be open with each other if you are seeking to make decisions that bind two parties in a government”.
He spoke of,
“the rejuvenation of the Cabinet committee system”.
The committee did not seek to contest that view, although we had learnt in the evidence sessions that a great many potentially contentious matters are resolved in the so-called “quad”, a kind of inner Cabinet which seems to take a great many more decisions than the Cabinet itself. What we were concerned about was collective ministerial responsibility and the breaches of the convention as it had previously been understood.
In response to a question from my noble friend Lord Lang of Monkton, the Deputy Prime Minister told us that it was important that when decisions are arrived at collectively they are defended collectively. My noble friend commented that that,
“seemed to imply that there is no collective responsibility unless specifically agreed. The agreement of 2010 says that there is collective responsibility unless it is specifically disagreed. You seem to think that those statements are compatible. It seems to me that they are not”.
Replying, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it was,
“an almost academic suggestion that collective responsibility can apply to decisions that have not been taken collectively”.
When I took up the argument, the Deputy Prime Minister agreed that some issues had been anticipated but said:
“There is a second category of issues: issues that you cannot anticipate on which the government cannot come to a collective agreement”.
He cited the Leveson inquiry and the decision that he should speak and offer a different point of view alongside the Prime Minister. He told us that that decision was “formally agreed”. He reiterated:
“Collective responsibility is how decisions are discussed, decided upon and then defended when collectively agreed within government. Collective responsibility is not a doctrine that says that coalition parties cannot disagree with each other in public”.
We were then told that where the convention of collective responsibility had been set aside explicitly, the decision had been taken,
“formally … within Whitehall by the Cabinet Secretary, in consultation with me and the Prime Minister”.
I do not believe that I was alone in being surprised—perhaps I should say astonished—by that revelation. The decision to set aside the convention was apparently being taken not by the Cabinet but by the Cabinet Secretary after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. That, we were told, is what happened in the case of the Leveson inquiry. The Deputy Prime Minister said that these decisions,
“are vetted and overseen by the Cabinet Secretary”.
Surely, it is a remarkable new constitutional practice that decisions of this kind about an important constitutional convention appear to depend upon a decision of the Cabinet Secretary. The guidance given in the Scottish Ministerial Code shows that it is possible to handle these matters differently. It states that,
“all decisions reached by the Scottish Ministers, individually or collectively, are binding on all members of the Government. It follows from this that every effort must normally be made to ensure that every Minister with an interest in an issue has a chance to have his or her say—in an appropriate forum or manner—before a decision is taken”.
Exactly the same principle should apply in the rest of the UK.
What happens in practice? Does the Cabinet Secretary say to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, “Have you circulated papers to every Minister with an interest or had a meeting of the Cabinet to see if agreement can be reached?”. No, he certainly does not say that because he will know that nothing of the kind will happen. Or does he say, “Well, I have listened to this discussion and it is all too obvious that you can’t agree, and so I certify that there is no collective agreement”? I do not consider that this is a proper role for the Cabinet Secretary or an appropriate way of explicitly setting aside the principle of collective responsibility.
In any event, as we have heard, some of the most extraordinary breaches of collective responsibility have taken place without the supervision of the Cabinet Secretary or as a result of any formal proceedings. We have been told about the decision of the Liberal Democrat Party to vote in 2013 on an amendment to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill delaying the review of parliamentary constituency boundaries in breach of a policy contained in the coalition agreement. It was taken personally by the Deputy Prime Minister who was angered by the withdrawal of the House of Lords Reform Bill.
My noble friend Lord Strathclyde, whose strong views have already been quoted, pointed out that the coalition agreement had been that the boundary review would take place in return for there being a referendum on the alternative vote. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who has also been quoted, said that the action,
“was wholly undermining of the process by which you should conduct yourself within government”.
He thought that departures from collective responsibility weakened the,
“authority of the Prime Minister and the Government”.
We also heard the strong criticisms made by Dr Stephen Barber about,
“the acquiescence by the Prime Minister to allow ministers to vote ‘against’ provisions in the Queen’s Speech”.
In paragraph 76, we give the reasons why so many of our witnesses believe that the abandonment of collective responsibility, other than in the most exceptional cases, is hugely damaging to good government. The unseemly row going on at present in and around the Department for Education is another example of behaviour damaging to good government. Is it really not possible to reach agreement on policy about the law concerning the carrying of knives without having a great public argument about it outside Cabinet committees? The committee strongly believes that,
“it is incumbent on ministers to seek to reach a collective view on issues wherever possible. Having reached a collective view, it is essential that they can be held to account for it … A proper process should be in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility. Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
The process involving the Cabinet Secretary described to us by the Deputy Prime Minister after we had produced our report is not, in my view, a proper process. Whether the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments represent a collective decision taken by the Government, and for which they can be held accountable, is not known because, very regrettably, as we have heard and not for the first time, the House has been debating a report of a House of Lords committee to which the Government have failed to produce a response in the two months referred to in the Companion. I know that my noble friend who will respond to this debate will do his best to deal with the points that have been raised, but we should have been in the position where we could debate the Government’s response and not just our report. Perhaps, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, has observed, there is no collective ministerial view about the conclusions reached by the committee.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has taken pleasure not only from the credit that has been given to her for her stewardship of the committee and the very valuable report, but from how interesting this debate has been. That is also a considerable tribute to her and her committee. The temptation is, however, to pick up some of the interesting range of issues and stray a long way from one’s intended text—and, I fear, bore the House.
However, I want to take up just one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who knows I have great respect for his views. I do not take the view that the fifth year of this Parliament will be a complete waste of time just because we do not have a whole lot of new laws being put before us. Ministers too often think that it is of great importance and virility to have some great Bill put before Parliament and that otherwise they think that they will not really exist in the public mind or among their colleagues. If we spend some time in this next year on post-legislative scrutiny and look at how successful or not some of the previous laws have been, that would be a valuable lesson for us and, in that respect, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act could well prove to be a real success.
I am delighted that my noble friends Lady Falkner and Lady Grender, are contributing to this debate—my noble friend Lady Falkner because of her contribution to the committee, and my noble friend Lady Grender, as I am sure colleagues in your Lordships’ House will discover, because she will bring to the debate an interesting view about the way in which some of these matters have been happening in the recesses of a coalition Government.
I confess to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the House that I approached the report with some trepidation, because I thought that it might be narrow and cautious, and even take a rather conservative view. I thought that we might be looking at just the way in which we somehow deviated over the past four years from the great conventions of the past. That has not been so. As someone who has always been keen on having a written constitution, there are moments when I have said over the past four years, “Thank God we haven’t got one” because we have been able to evolve to meet the requirements of the situation.
Here in the committee’s report is an interesting recognition of the political facts of life. As paragraph 2 of the report rightly points out:
“Trends in voting behaviour, with fewer votes for the two largest parties and an increasing number of MPs representing smaller parties, make it increasingly possible that hung parliaments will recur”.
Ironically, the other place, which ought to be much more responsive to changes in the views of our fellow citizens, seems to be still stubbornly bipolar by comparison. With that in mind, it seems right to consider the constitutional implications in light of the essential job that a balanced Parliament has to do on behalf of the nation—that is, to give life to what the electorate have instructed, albeit with what most people would regard as an inconclusive result. This is the first peacetime majority Government since 1931. That is to say it is a Government whose MP supporters were elected by more than 50% of those who voted. Those who are in favour of minority Governments should think carefully about the example of the summer of 1974, when a Government who had no majority did nothing useful whatever, ended up with an early general election and there was then an unstable Government thereafter.
Those who voted in 2010 for the governing parties would probably disagree on many issues were they were to meet around a focus group table or a table in a pub. After all, if they had all felt the same, they would have voted for just one party. They did not. We should therefore be relaxed about the fact that their representatives in Parliament and in government sometimes disagree, too, sometimes openly. That may be better than the sort of divisions that were clearly behind the scenes in the previous Administration, as we now know from so many autobiographies and diaries.
Collective responsibility in all Governments—particularly in this one—is like the security services: you only find out about their failures but never hear about their successes. Despite all the inevitable journalistic craving for “coalition splits”, this Government have succeeded in upholding collective responsibility much more often than they have failed, with agreements reached more often than differences have been aired. By far the majority of the coalition agreement has stood the test of tensions between the parties. Where collective responsibility has been absent is where collective agreement has been absent, too. One is necessarily dependent on the other, and where a party has not signed up to a particular policy in a coalition agreement, its leadership within the Government cannot always be bound to a position preferred by the other coalition partner.
A generally successful Government would surely aspire to the committee’s recommendation in paragraph 78 that setting aside collective responsibility should be rare. I agree very much with my noble friend Lady Falkner on the example picked out in paragraph 73—in contrast to my other noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who made a meal of the other example given in an earlier paragraph. How rare will always be determined in future balanced Parliaments both by Harold Macmillan’s famous phrase “Events, dear boy” and by the depth and breadth of the agreements reached between the parties to a future coalition.
For that reason, the committee’s recommendation at paragraph 26 that there should be a full 12-day interval between the general election and the meeting of a new Parliament is really important. The coalition worked with extraordinary speed in agreeing a programme and an Administration at a time of grave economic risk for the whole country. Future coalitions should not have to work in such circumstances. Five days to determine the programme for five years of government is not necessarily sufficient. Indeed, international experience suggests that even 12 days might be a push. However, the idea that our country would grind to a halt if a change of government took even 28 days seems excessive. The wheels of Whitehall would keep on turning. It would just be a little longer before big changes in policy could be effected and big announcements could be made.
Incidentally, I believe that the one really serious omission in the committee’s report is what seems to be a failure to take account of other mature democracies’ experience. It is surely excessively insular—perhaps even xenophobic—not to take some notice of the extensive coalition experience of our continental neighbours and partners. Some of them may, as we all know, take excessive time to knit together coalition agreements, but other aspects of their arrangements may well give us useful insights. As with collective responsibility, I do not believe that the British people would be that worried about delay in the same way as the British 24-hour news media seem to be. Any repeat of the ludicrously overblown warnings of imminent Armageddon from Conservative newspapers in May 2010, with dire foreboding of a hung Parliament and parliamentarians being hung from the lampposts, will hardly seem credible in the future.
I believe that the committee has put its finger on the right way for the House of Commons to endorse a Government, once in place. I do not agree with those who, even this evening, have suggested that an investiture vote for a Prime Minister would be to endorse the person. I do not believe that is appropriate, so I am glad to see that it is rejected by the committee. Why should a junior coalition partner endorse a person of another party to be Prime Minister per se before the negotiations on programme and team have taken place and been concluded?
To my mind, in any case, a really important constitutional principle is that the House of Commons, newly elected by the nation, should be investing its confidence in the new Government—both their programme and their personnel—at the end of the Queen’s Speech. The committee is absolutely right on that point. Otherwise, taking the Prime Minister out of that equation would imply a further and, I think, entirely improper drift towards presidential governance. What makes a coalition fit together is a programme on which the parties can agree, even if the people—the characters—involved later prove to be important glue sticking it together through the ups and downs of political fortune.
As has already been referred to, the Institute for Government has done excellent work in recent months in this Parliament, studying how the political structures in Whitehall have responded to the coalition. It has found that by and large our constitutional arrangements, following the political circumstances of the time, have proved up to the job. That is the essence of the system. I understand that this very day Peter Riddell has been giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee at the other end on behalf of the Institute for Government. I pay tribute to him and his team for the work they have done.
Even if we did benefit from a written constitution, as almost every other mature country does, the day-to-day decision-making of a Government comprising two or more parties could not be constrained to pretend that they are one party. It is wrong and it should not be so. The political fortunes of both partners depend on their distinction from each other, while the fortunes of the country depend on the partners working together. Two or more parties working together make for better government and for better politics too, but inevitably that is the politics of disagreeing where you have to— that is what it is all about—and seeking agreement as best you can. At least it is done transparently in contrast to many of the single-party Governments of the past.
This Government, and the past four years, have shown that it is possible to secure both that disagreement, which is inevitable in politics, and also that measure of agreement to produce good governance. Even the Westminster Parliament, with all its pomp and flummery, has responded because it has needed to. The committee of your Lordships’ House has performed an extremely valuable function in demonstrating how that has been undertaken. Its analysis and advice will guide us to good effect, whatever the parliamentary arithmetic in May 2015 and in future general elections. I suggest to your Lordships that many of the lessons will stand equally well for single-party government as for coalitions in the future. I particularly endorse the view of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. I hope that the recommendations will be taken seriously not just by the present Government—and I hope that there will be collective responsibility in their response to this—but by the opposition party, because between now and May next year the lessons of this report will stand us in very good stead.
Lord O'Donnell (CB)
First, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and her committee on producing an important and timely report. I broadly support the conclusions and I very much hope that Ministers and—picking up on what was just said—the Opposition will implement the suggested changes. I should also note that I agree very strongly with my illustrious predecessor, my noble friend Lord Butler, on the points that he has made, with one exception: I am with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on the question of fixed-term Parliaments. I think they are a good thing.
I want to make one practical point. We have a very large number of Select Committees in this House and the other place. We have a period between now and the election. Would it not be great if all the Select Committees looked back on their reports and recommendations and produced a short note on what has been changed as a result and those things where nothing has happened? Not only might this tell us about the effectiveness of the committees but it might stimulate a bit of debate about whether the Government have responded in line with the recommendations or have decided not to take them up. In the run-up to manifestos being produced, it might generate some interesting material or policies. That is my first suggestion.
Tonight, I want to take the opportunity to look forward to the next election rather than backwards, and I will argue that the past is not necessarily a good guide to the future. We have already had a lot of discussion about different interpretations of the past and I look forward to them being elucidated further in the many memoirs to come—which will not include mine.
Many have commented on the committee’s suggestion that the principle of collective responsibility should be set aside only very rarely. I strongly endorse that principle, but I have to acknowledge that the coalition parties have agreed that they will fight the next election as separate parties. As the first parties came down the steps at Downing Street, I, for one, felt that we were at the high point of the coalition. I expected that, as we got to the point where the election was formally called, we would be at the low point and that there would be a curve in that direction. I got out at the top point. However, let us be clear that this was inevitable. To me, it was entirely predictable and that curve has gone entirely as I expected.
Ahead of the next general election, let us think about what the Civil Service will have to do. I believe in the Boy Scouts’ motto, “Be prepared”. It is very important that the Civil Service prepares itself for all possible outcomes. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, ask whether we will have another coalition, although he believes it is unlikely. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, the pollsters are very clear that the long-term decline in the share of the vote going to the two main parties is apparent in the data. It is a really interesting question and it is rather difficult to predict what is going to happen next time. I intend to spend a little time, in a very nerdy way, modelling that process but it will be very tricky. However, I think that the Civil Service will need to work not on the basis of those predictions but on the basis that it should prepare for all possible outcomes. I would certainly include more work on minority Governments than was done on previous occasions and—something that people have not picked up on—I would certainly think about contingency work, looking at scenarios following all possible results in the Scottish referendum. People may decide that they want to do this contingency work once they know the result of that referendum, but one thing that will help the Civil Service is having a complete Cabinet Manual and not just a draft of one of its chapters.
One thing that I will try to keep to in my comments, which not many other people have done, is that in the Civil Service preparations ahead of last time we decided we would use the term “unclear result”. People have referred to “inconclusive results” but the terms “hung” and “balanced” are rather unbalanced and therefore “unclear result” is the best way of thinking about it.
Picking up on what both the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord McConnell, have said, there were a number of myths about coalition. One of them was that you had the lowest common denominators and that they would not do very much. We have had ample evidence now that that is not true. Whether or not you think they have done the right things, they have made large changes.
On the points that were made about the kind of Government that we have got, on comparing coalition with single-party government it is certainly my experience that the Cabinet committees have done a great deal more of the heavy lifting during coalition than has been the case during single-party government by both parties. While people talk about the quad doing a lot, believe me, smaller groups of Ministers before did quite a lot. The quad is relatively formal compared to some of those other occasions.
On the point about the length of time it might take before finalising a Government if there were to be an unclear result next time, this is important because a number of people have made the point about the media clamouring “to get on with it” and castigating the Prime Minister for staying. The excellent report makes clear that it is the Prime Minister’s duty to stay around until it is clear who will succeed him or her. It is important that we talk about the length of time.
This time it will be different. Let me give you five quick reasons why. First, the macroeconomic background will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, rather more favourable. I predict with a pretty high degree of confidence that the UK deficit will be much lower, growth will be higher and, with slightly less confidence, there will be no euro crisis going on. Secondly, the markets will have observed that coalition government is feasible in the United Kingdom—there were some rather silly remarks made last time—and that will make them more patient. Thirdly, it is likely that the two main parties might need to engage in more consultation with their MPs than they did last time. Fourthly, all parties in the negotiations might have made more commitments in advance, thereby restricting their room for manoeuvre. That will raise all kinds of complications. Finally, there may be all kinds of questions about the parameters of any negotiations with Scotland if there is a yes vote in the referendum.
For all those reasons, it will be important to allow the negotiators time to reach a durable agreement and for markets and the public to realise that such negotiations, judged by experience in continental Europe—I again think of what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said—will in general take much longer than five days. Indeed, it was a future Lib Dem Minister in the negotiations last time who pointed out to me that the average in Europe at that point, in 2010, was around 44 days. If we took the recent Belgian and German experiences into account, we might come up with a higher number.
None of what I have said should be seen as implying anything about the likelihood of an unclear result. It follows from the simple principle that civil servants need to be prepared for whatever emerges.
My overwhelming memory of the discussions in 2010—I hope I am not breaking any conventions here—is that all the key politicians behaved not only effectively but well and honourably. There were very few leaks during the talks and very little grandstanding to the media. I hope that that will be repeated. Many of the key civil servants are still in post and I know that they learnt a lot from their experience in 2010. I have no doubt that the Civil Service will do even better next time.
What can we, as parliamentarians, do to help? First, we have a duty to encourage increased participation in elections. The Hansard Society’s excellent audit of political engagement, of which we have all just received copies, makes particularly worrying reading. Eighteen months ahead of the general elections in 2005 and 2010, it found that the majority of respondents said that they were certain to vote. Now, for the same period, it is a minority. It concludes that,
“turnout may struggle to match 2010 levels next year”.
That is the society’s conclusion, not mine. It goes on to say that less than a quarter of the public believe that,
“Parliament encourages public involvement in politics”.
We need to consider how we can do something about that.
Television debates certainly encouraged and stimulated public interest last time. It is important that these debates are seen as having democratic legitimacy. I fear for this because, at the moment, negotiations are being conducted solely between a few parties and the broadcasters. That is not necessarily right.
I thank the committee. I threw a bit of a curve ball at it—as a witness you are supposed to answer questions, not pose them—when I said that I was worried about the question of access to papers, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. It has come up with a sensible suggestion. The absence of an answer in advance creates all kinds of problems and I hope that we can get a cross-party consensus around operating in that way.
Once again, I congratulate the Select Committee on an excellent report. It is very sad that there has not yet been a government response. I would love to be able to say that this would never have happened in my day but I fear that the evidence may not be entirely with me. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that a future committee, with as much wisdom and experience as this one has shown, will be able to tackle some of the issues I have raised today and come forth with another report which we can debate in this House.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, no one, I think, will seek to deny the importance of this report. I was very glad to be able to contribute in a small measure to the work on which it is based as a member of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been granted a place on this committee two years ago.
Reference has already been made more than once to the wise words of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth—always in my view the surest guide on constitutional matters—who on this occasion is being kept, like the best wine, until last. He pointed out in the committee’s first evidence session that,
“this is the first time that we have had a coalition that has been the product of the arithmetic of the general election … we have not been in that circumstance before; we have had coalitions, but where one party has been dominant and could have governed on its own”.
Our past coalitions, dominated by one party, operated reasonably contentedly according to procedures fashioned under single-party government that the smaller party or parties within them were in no position to alter in any marked degree. Now a new pattern has been set. I am less sanguine than my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that it will not be repeated. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord O’Donnell, that the likelihood is considerable. In any future coalitions, as in this one, a single party is unlikely to be in a dominant position. The electoral arithmetic will be decisive. It is as a result of the election of hung Parliaments—which, in the past, never ushered in a coalition Government at Westminster—that such Governments will almost certainly come into existence in future in peacetime.
The report is therefore significant and timely because it addresses the implications of this major change in our constitutional landscape. It puts forward clear answers to the chief questions that have been cast into such sharp relief by the experience of this first coalition Government of the new type. Like my colleague and noble friend Lady Falkner, I would like to touch on a few of them, returning for the most part—I hope I will be forgiven—to matters that have already been the subject of comment in this debate.
The report gives short shrift to ideas that have recently gained currency in some academic circles that would encumber the process of coalition-making with unnecessary votes of approval in the other place. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, I do not think that we should add new requirements when long-established procedures work just as well for coalition Governments as for single-party ones. Any Government’s first Queen’s Speech provides a time-honoured test of whether they command the confidence of the Commons—and that is enough. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Tyler endorse that. Similarly, the committee concluded that no special arrangements are needed to provide sufficient time for coalitions to be assembled. Some 12 days are currently available, as the report points out. If a fortnight is sufficient to concentrate the mind of a condemned man, politicians—conscious, one hopes, of their duty to the nation and their sovereign—ought to be able to manage with two fewer days.
In its deliberations that led to this report, the committee devoted more time to the issue of cabinet collective responsibility than to any other. This has come up several times already in the debate. It aroused more concern than any other central constitutional question because of the cavalier manner in which it has been treated all too frequently in this first coalition Government of the new type.
There is the opposite danger that collective responsibility might come to be invested with an aura of sanctity. Undue veneration would be contrary to our traditions. Collective responsibility is a doctrine that has been set aside in the past, as the report notes, giving three 20th century examples. There are others. Even Mr Gladstone, the most unbending of constitutionalists, was capable of taking a highly pragmatic and flexible view. When one of his Cabinet colleagues voted against what became known as the Third Reform Act 1884, he reminded the offender of the elementary rule that Cabinet members should vote together, but added that,
“it would be most unfortunate were the minds of men at such a juncture to be disturbed by the resignation of a Cabinet Minister”.
As so often in constitutional affairs, it is surely all a matter of balance and degree. Frequent breaches of collective responsibility must be expected, as we have heard, to damage the reputation and diminish the authority of a Government, particularly if they come unexpectedly, out of the blue, and without being preceded by any collective Cabinet decision to set the doctrine aside. That danger has been amply illustrated in the past four years. It could be significantly reduced by following the recommendations in this report. The key passage has been quoted before, but it bears repetition:
“Where it is clear that no collective position can be reached on an issue, a proper process should be in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility. Such setting aside should be agreed by the Cabinet as a whole and be in respect of a specific issue”.
The report goes on to urge that such a process should be introduced now and operate for the rest of this Parliament. Recent events have perhaps added to the significance of that particular portion of the report, and perhaps at the end of the debate the Minister will tell us whether we can now look forward to an announcement that the necessary arrangements will be established. In my view, it is the most important contribution that this first new-style coalition could make to assist the provision of good government by coalitions that may follow in the future.
The report has attracted favourable attention not only in this House but outside it. George Jones, emeritus professor of government at the London School of Economics, has described it as “an historic document”. However, it has not yet, as we have heard, attracted comment from the Government, who have had it in their hands for three months. Their formal written response ought to have been delivered in April—but sadly, as we have heard from previous speakers in the debate, delay is far from unusual. I cannot recall a single government response to the report of a Constitution Committee inquiry that has been delivered within the prescribed period in the time that I have been on the committee. Last week, my noble friend the Leader of the House accepted that we need,
“prompt and accurate replies to … Questions for Written Answer”.—[Official Report, 8/5/14; col. 1574.]
I trust that he takes the same view for Select Committee reports.
No one connected with the Constitution Committee can fail to be struck by the consistently high quality of the service members receive from the committee’s staff and legal advisers. Sensible committees do not draft. The preparation of this report proceeded in the usual faultless manner under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to her at the end of her distinguished chairmanship.
Baroness Grender
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the committee on this report and the noble Baroness on leading this debate. It is a privilege to be speaking in a debate led by her.
There have been many predictions about the survival of this coalition Government. One of my personal favourites is from Peter Oborne, writing in March 2012, who said it would be finished by 2013. Last time a debate was held here, there were predictions that this place had a natural government majority and would become a rubber-stamping Chamber. I think if you spoke to any of the Whips today, they would strongly dispute that. Even at the start of this coalition, the civil servants game-planning the talks, as we have since learnt from the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, found that they could not reach agreement in their mock talks when they were preparing for the real ones—a prediction of failure before they even began.
For my own part, I was one of those rare creatures, a Liberal Democrat special adviser based in Downing Street, so I had a ring-side seat. You could even describe it as experiencing some white-knuckle rides that could be defined only as constitutional rollercoaster moments: the somewhat unexpected use of the veto by the PM at the EU summit in December 2011; the failure to reform the House of Lords in 2012; and the subsequent delay on boundary reforms that summer. All are examples of moments that shook the coalition. I must admit that, once or twice, I wondered how long it would take to clear my desk as the speculation mounted that the coalition would buckle under the strain.
However, in the end, because of the coalition, there have always been processes in place which ensured that the business of delivering government policies and plans prevails over disagreements between two political parties that are so different. It is the combination of both formality and transparency which has made this coalition work: from the Cabinet Secretary’s role to the daily meetings; from the return to cabinet government and the proper use of Cabinet sub-committees to the existence of the quad to resolve issues and plan major initiatives; and the back-stop of the coalition committee, which has met only twice. Of course, there have been disagreements, and on some issues they have been profound but, most of the time, the schedules and a business-like attitude have prevailed. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, for setting up some of the processes which have served the coalition so well.
I recall one of the first meetings I attended was such a robust exchange that I was quite surprised by it. However, I soon learnt that conversations at the heart of government should be robust, just as they should be in any senior management operation of any organisation. Certainly, the stories in the press over the past few days suggest that “robust” has been taken to a whole new level, but I would speculate that by the time we get to the next general election many of the disagreements—genuine policy disagreements—will have been more transparent as a result of coalition. I hope that ways are found to ensure this level of transparency about all future Governments and not just coalitions. For instance, anyone can now go on the Government’s website and see the coalition agreement and what progress has been made in each area in that agreement. That is not something that was provided under previous Administrations.
There is, of course, an ongoing narrative that this form of government is a disgrace and that rows dominate. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that majority governments can and do row, factionalise and fall out, and this is not a symptom of coalition. It is about people and getting things done. After all, coalition has been a regular post-war feature in both Germany and Italy, but with varying results. I personally will never forget the astonishment I experienced when a Liberal Democrat MP described to me how a Labour Cabinet Minister had invited him in and given him a list of questions to use to probe another member of the Labour Cabinet. A mere glimpse inside the unpleasant world created by Damian McBride would show rows that dragged everyone down in a majority Government, including decent civil servants caught in the crossfire. Falling out is a fact of life in government. Keeping it to policy and away from personality and having processes that are used to ensure that should always be the goal. If anything, the processes and formality that have been necessary to serve two parties in government can only be an improvement.
I would like to touch on the role of the Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretaries, because I believe that they are more and more crucial to resolving these issues. Under this coalition, the Cabinet Secretaries have provided a necessary and important link between the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Number 10 and the Cabinet Office. However, as the Institute for Government points out in its latest report about the final year of coalition, some in Whitehall prefer the ambiguity. It goes on to say:
“Many in Westminster and Whitehall still behave as if the Coalition does not exist, or as if its existence requires only informal and temporary adjustments”.
I am sure that other noble Lords have heard stories from their friends in the Civil Service of arriving at a meeting to discover that no Liberal Democrats are at the table, and wondering what on earth to do about it. This is where I believe that the role of the Permanent Secretary in each department is vital. Permanent Secretaries should have sufficient objectivity and seniority to ensure that their departments are run with an understanding of two political parties in power. Their role as an honest broker is something the IFG has recommended. I would love to see some follow-up on this.
Like the Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretaries have a duty to deliver government policy and to help to plan and prepare for the next Government. The committee’s conclusions on the need for confidential briefings in the run-up to an election provide a sensible guide, and I really welcome that. I also welcome the useful examples from both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, shared impressively with us by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. The success that he and my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness achieved at “conscious uncoupling” is an example to us all. The bromance is still there: we can see it in their eyes.
I would like to touch on one more specific area of constitutional change examined by the committee—that of the fixed-term Parliament. While it has been delivered by this coalition Government and it has provided a level of stability which was essential for economic recovery, I urge noble Lords to see this as a change which will enhance Government, whether it be majority, minority or coalition. Indeed, only this week the CBI expressed its concerns about political instability and the likely effect on business. A five-year fixed term provides all Governments with an opportunity to look before leaping. I cannot agree more with the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, that there is sometimes an obsession with driving through new pieces of legislation. I recall the opportunity that came up—if you can call it that—when Lords reform fell and there was time on the parliamentary agenda. That was an opportunity to use it in a much more creative and imaginative way than introducing more legislation.
As the recent Crewe and King book, The Blunders of our Governments, demonstrates, time and time again the speed and pace of policy change, without testing in advance, results in failure. I suggest that the well worn phrase, “hit the ground running” for a new government should drive fear into the heart of every elector. I remember watching Lord Callaghan—the father of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay—on a results programme at the start of the Government in 1997. When asked what they should do, he replied, “They should probably sit down and have a cup of tea”. At the time I thought—I assume so did the Blair Government—that he was completely wrong. I am now beginning to understand what he meant. A fixed term of five years no longer means you need to front-load every policy change into the first Parliament. A fixed-term Parliament provides the thinking and testing time to trial things and test out and research policy before it is introduced. It does not need that race at the beginning that we are all so used to culturally because we are used to having a scenario without fixed-term Parliaments.
Over the next year, there will be a need for greater clarity, particularly for civil servants. Again, the Institute for Government provides useful advice about the need to reach agreement at the top about the rules and that those rules should be published. I conclude with a useful lesson in fighting elections and working together: the example of the Eastleigh by-election. The battle was fierce, but at the same time the parties worked together in government with economic recovery as a core purpose. That is not only possible in a theoretical sense; this coalition, on all sides, has shown it can be delivered in a practical sense.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted that this important and timely report is being debated this evening. Like others, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the Constitution Committee on a valuable and prudent analysis of the constitutional implications of coalition Government. I was especially impressed by the committee’s analysis of the convention of collective responsibility. Its explanation of and justification for the convention are superb. I support strongly its recommendations in paragraphs 138 to 141. Indeed, there are no recommendations that I do not support, although—as I shall argue—there are some that I would wish to develop.
The report is measured and realistic. Its starting point is that there may again be coalition Governments following elections in which no one party wins an absolute majority of seats but it accepts that that is a case of if rather than when. The conditions of 2010 were exceptional in terms of the confluence of electoral arithmetic and economic crisis. In other circumstances, the outcome of a hung Parliament may be minority Government rather than a coalition. If there is an indecisive outcome and if negotiations take place for the formation of a coalition Government, it would be desirable to have in place some agreed framework for those negotiations. The report offers eminently reasonable recommendations for that framework.
The recommendations are essentially modest in that they cannot solve two basic problems associated with such negotiations, but they go some way to addressing one of them. The basic problem is that of a democratic deficit. Coalitions formed as the result of post-election bargaining lack the seal of electoral approval. Some argue that if party A gets 35% of the vote and party B gets 20%, then a coalition of the two parties enjoys the support of 55% of the electorate. It does not. It enjoys the definitive support of not one elector because nobody was given the opportunity to vote for A plus B. Its legitimacy comes from the support of the parties in Parliament. Its popular legitimacy is, in essence, indirect rather than direct.
The second problem is that of incomplete information. Whatever one thinks of party manifestos, each party has time to prepare its policy proposals to put before the electorate. There may be a lengthy process of internal discussion and, indeed, of external consultation, drawing in specialists to advise. There may even be an opportunity to anticipate one’s stance in the event of an indecisive election result, but one cannot utilise the same process of consultation and discussion. In coalition forming, as we have already heard, there is pressure to reach agreement quickly—at least, there is in the United Kingdom.
We are used to a quick and almost seamless transition from one Government to another, usually on the day following the general election. As has been mentioned, by our standards, the five days of negotiations in 2010 were a long time. The pressure on negotiators was to reach agreement quickly and in conditions of competition. The discussions took place in secrecy. Deals were agreed in a virtually sealed environment. There was no opportunity to consult on what was being agreed, in terms of not just political acceptability but feasibility. I am concerned here not with the partisan aspects but with the evidence base. Those involved with the negotiations may be very bright, but they may not be specialists in all the subjects under discussion.
Let me illustrate that with a couple of commitments embodied in the coalition agreement. The Conservatives conceded the case for a fixed-term Parliament. The coalition agreement stated:
“We will put a binding motion before the House of Commons stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015”.
No binding Motion was ever brought before the House of Commons, for one very good reason: there was no one to be bound by such a binding Motion. The prerogative cannot be bound by what is a declaratory Motion.
The agreement also said that the legislation would provide for an early dissolution if 55% or more of MPs voted for it. Did this figure derive from a study of practice in other legislatures? If one looks at the provisions of other legislatures, the answer is clearly no. It was the product of a quick calculation based on party strengths in the new Parliament. It was only later that a change was made to make the figure two-thirds of MPs, a figure employed by several other legislatures.
I take those as illustrative of the problem of incomplete information. The pressure to reach agreement quickly in conditions of secrecy may result in commitments that are difficult to undo. There is added pressure on Parliament, not least your Lordships’ House, but if the coalition partners mobilise a majority in the other place, we are limited in challenging the ends of the policy even if we have the scope to affect the means. It would be far better if the policies agreed were the product of considered and informed reflection. I therefore welcome the recommendation of the Constitution Committee at paragraph 22 that five days should not be taken as a complete period for forming a government. It recommends that no more or less time should be taken than is required to produce a government able to command the confidence of the House of Commons. I would be inclined to say there should be no more or less time than is required to generate informed policy commitments and to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
Does my noble friend agree that to seek to lay down a programme for government for five years in five days is in itself unachievable, that events will change things, and that it is therefore better to enunciate the principles, vision or goals rather than the precise methods of achieving them?
Lord Norton of Louth
I am not suggesting that it has to be detailed; I am referring to the feasibility and to quickly checking that what is being suggested at a high level of policy is at least grounded in what is feasible and correct.
There is one other problem to which I wish to draw attention. It complements the recommendations embodied in the report. The formation of a coalition may exacerbate a problem of experience in government. There are benefits in Ministers having some grounding in government by either experience or training. In recent decades, we have had people appointed to senior ministerial office with no prior experience of government. That is a consequence of a party being in opposition for a relatively long time. The problem is compounded by the formation of a coalition where it draws in a party which has not had expectation of being in office and has no Members with ministerial experience.
I have pursued for some time the need for ministerial training and, indeed, for training of senior civil servants when it comes to understanding our constitutional arrangements. If there is a significant churn in senior civil servants and Ministers are taking office with no prior experience or knowledge of the subject, we have serious problems.
We have generalist Ministers and generalist civil servants having responsibility for what may be important, and at times complex, areas of policy but with no grounding in the subject at all. A particular example is training. At the end of 2012 I tabled a Question asking how many Ministers in the Cabinet Office and the office of Lord President of the Council had received training from the National School of Government or Civil Service Learning in constitutional principles and practice. My noble friend Lady Northover provided a concise answer: “None”.
We need to think seriously about how we ensure that Ministers new to office get a grasp of how to undertake their responsibilities, as well as gain some knowledge of the area of their responsibility. Relying on officials may not be sufficient, especially if the officials are as new as the Minister. There may be a case for those on the Opposition Front Bench not only to have contact with officials, but also to be provided with sessions with specialists, not just in the subject area of their portfolios, but also in the running of government.
In the event of a coalition there may be a case for some briefing sessions to be incorporated into the period between reaching agreement and the meeting of the new Parliament. I strongly support the recommendations of the Constitution Committee at paragraph 40 for administrative support and factual briefings for those engaged in negotiations, but I think there is a case for further advice and training once a new Government are formed. For that reason I also support the recommendation at paragraph 26 for a 12-day gap between an election and the meeting of a new Parliament to be the preferred choice, while recognising that even longer may be required.
I raise the issue as an important one for the quality of government. It goes beyond the issue of coalition formation, but forming coalitions may, as I say, exacerbate the problem, especially if it involves third parties which have had no expectation of office.
I again congratulate the Constitution Committee on another excellent report. Its message is that we may not have a coalition government in the event of an indecisive election result, but if we do, we need to have the mechanisms in place to facilitate it. It is an eminently sensible report. I trust that the Government will embrace its recommendations. I say to my noble friend Lord Lexden that I am not sure whether or not that is fine wine, but then I am teetotal.
Lord Donoughue (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the House for allowing me to speak briefly in the gap. This is an excellent and timely report, beautifully introduced by my noble friend Lady Jay.
With the decline in support for the two main parties, hung Parliaments—despite the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that they should be rare—sadly may be more frequent in the United Kingdom. As the report says, I was the only witness to firmly oppose coalition as the best resolution to hung Parliaments. I will explain by saying that what I fear is that public and politicians may now assume that coalition is the natural, the automatic and perhaps the only response to hung Parliaments. The House should have on record that this is not the case.
Recent history, as I experienced in Downing Street in the 1970s, shows at least two alternative practical responses to a hung Parliament. One is minority government by the largest party. This can and did work reasonably well in terms of progressing and processing government. It may not have been wholly successful, but that was a political matter. A second alternative is a loose pact between a major and a minor party, as in 1977-78 between Labour and the old Liberal Party—sometimes called “supply and confidence”—whereby the minor party gave broad support to the Government while it was consulted sympathetically on all coming legislation. It had the advantage of being without all the formalities of coalition, especially in not having members of the minority party in the Cabinet—something which Conservatives opposite must now, I imagine, look back on with envy. It worked well and lasted almost five years, while opinion polls showed public support for this loose arrangement.
These alternatives are not perfect. They leave uncertainty about the Government’s long-term survival, whereas a coalition offers more assurance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, pointed out very well. However, they have the advantages of maintaining the coherent values of a single-party Government, recently exposed to the nation and voted on in a general election campaign. They do not have the clear disadvantages of a formal coalition, which we have witnessed with sadness and compassion over the past four years, such as those listed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. They include: the confusion over the operation of collective responsibility; the muddles over what the Government’s policies actually are; the mediocrity of having some people in government only because they are part of a minority quota; and the public bickering, as there was recently over free schools.
Fundamentally, I suppose that my reservations are primarily about one single party—in practice, the Liberal Democrats, who have insufficient public support but massive overrepresentation in this House—being perhaps permanently in government. I hope that the next majority party and the civil servants advising it immediately after a future election will follow the wise advice of this report. I hope that they will consider the two alternatives of minority government and a loose pact with an open mind, and will not assume that a coalition is always the best and only option. That will not always be the case.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I start by congratulating the Constitution Committee on the production of this excellent report and, in particular, by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington. She has been an excellent chair of the committee and will be an extremely hard act to follow. This is one of a number of roles that my noble friend has undertaken as a member of your Lordships’ House with the usual calm, efficient and knowledgeable approach that she brings to all the tasks she undertakes. I know that she is highly respected and admired by Members on all Benches. I first got to know and work with my noble friend Lady Jay many years before I joined your Lordships’ House and it is a privilege to call her my noble friend.
As I said in my opening remarks, this is an excellent report and a very timely one. The first coalition in more than 70 years and the first peacetime coalition in 79 years was formed in 2010 between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. I have always been of the opinion that the coalition would serve out its full term. I never treated with any seriousness the reports that it was about to implode, collapse or disappear, so essentially I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender.
While it may be wrong to say that it was uncharted territory, it was certainly territory that had not been navigated for a very long time. All the players involved in earlier discussions had left the pitch. I have some sympathy for the Liberal Democrats and the position that they found themselves in. They have certainly paid a heavy price at the ballot box in the local elections following the general election of 2010, as voters have shown their displeasure at some of the policies they have pursued with their coalition partners. If we look abroad, it often is the junior partner in a coalition that pays a heavier price in subsequent elections. None of us has crystal balls or can see into the future but, as the report points out, the growth in votes and seats for parties that are neither Labour nor Conservative has increased from 10 seats and 10% of the vote in the 1950s to 86 seats and a third of the vote in 2010. The trend is clear; if it continues further coalitions are possible and perhaps even very likely. Our constitution and the way that government and Parliament react and adapt to change is a matter that needs to be kept under review. This report is an important part of that review. It has been interesting to hear from noble Lords who were involved to differing degrees in the discussions to form the coalition and, in the case of my noble friend Lord McConnell, on the formation of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament.
I will now address specific parts of the report. My opinion is that there should be no fixed time for agreement to be reached between coalition partners but discussion should be concluded as soon as possible. A rushed agreement that struggles will not produce good government and will set up the Administration to fail from the outset as the realities of government come into play. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, made important points in respect of that as did the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth.
On fixed-term Parliaments, I agree with the evidence given by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton when he suggested that five year fixed-term Parliaments were too long and that four years was more in tune with the natural rhythm of our electoral cycles. I agree also with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. The contribution on the last year of Parliaments by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was very interesting, as there is concern across the House that all the extra time off we have had recently affects the ability of the House to hold the Government properly to account. The Government need to respond to that point.
When I look back to the time of the formation of the coalition, I recall the press being camped outside Parliament on College Green and outside party headquarters—certainly outside the Conservative and Liberal Democrat headquarters. At that time I was working at the Labour Party headquarters and it was a bit quieter there. It was new for everyone in 2010. If the general election next year results in a hung Parliament I hope that more informed briefings are provided so that the media can report more accurately on what actually is going on rather than endlessly speculating on what might be going on. I accept fully that that is much easier to say than to deliver and that the media like speculation, but it is important to keep citizens informed as far as possible with accurate information and to give them reassurance that things are under control and procedures remain in place to ensure stability.
I very much agreed with the report when it looked at the duty of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until a successor who can command a majority in the House of Commons is identified. That could be described as the final duty of an incumbent Prime Minister: ensuring stability, enabling discussions to take place and facilitating the transfer of power in an orderly fashion, as you would expect in a mature democracy. I very much agreed with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in that respect.
The use of the Civil Service is also considered by the report. The previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced before the general election that in the event of a hung Parliament the Civil Service would be available to support negotiations between the parties. It may be that if coalitions become the norm in the United Kingdom their role in supporting the negotiations will increase over time. That could be very helpful in bringing greater clarity and resolution of issues in a more timely fashion. Perhaps that will occur over time and will be much more like the process described by my noble friend Lord McConnell.
I could not see a situation where an incumbent Prime Minister in the future would not follow what Gordon Brown did in making the announcement about the involvement of the Civil Service. However, for greater clarity, it may be wise for the Government to make an announcement many months in advance of the election about what will happen after a general election under various scenarios, as the report suggested and as my noble friend Lady Jay outlined. The autumn period, after the conference season, seems the ideal time for the Government to make such an announcement. That would be before any real campaigning gets under way and would provide everyone with the clarity they need.
I did not like at all the suggestion of having a prime ministerial investiture vote and am pleased that the committee did not adopt this proposal. That seems at odds with our parliamentary system of government. It may be said that things have become more presidential, with so much focus on our party leaders, but for me this is a step too far. Parliament has mechanisms that enable it to express the confidence or otherwise in the whole Government led by the Prime Minister of the day, starting with the vote on the Queen’s Speech. It is clear, effective and well understood. For that reason I am in agreement with the committee’s opinion that it is not desirable to have a separate vote on any coalition agreements between the parties.
One of the most interesting parts of the report is chapter 4, which looks at the operation of government and Parliament under coalition. The principle of collective ministerial responsibility has served us well in the UK, where decisions are reached collectively and, when made, are binding on all Ministers. The principle largely stands but it may be that, with the evolution of coalition Government, more emphasis on the agreements to differ needs to be allowed to avoid disputes between Ministers and parties in the same Administration. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Lexden, referred to that very matter.
The breakdown during this Parliament between the coalition partners over House of Lords reform, the ability of the Government to secure a majority for the programme motion in the House of Commons and the subsequent blocking of the boundary reviews highlighted a serious deficiency between the coalition partners that had either not been seen or not worked out sufficiently in advance. As we have seen, this issue came to the surface again today in contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner.
I again find myself in agreement with the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton in this part of the report. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it is important, as the report highlights, to have proper processes in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility on individual matters to ensure that collective responsibility remains in place for the vast majority of the Government’s programme.
The creation of what has been called “the quad” is an interesting development. It certainly puts the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, at the heart of the decision-making process and makes clear that this body deals with and agrees the way forward on the thorniest issues that confront the Government. In fact, as many noble Lords have said, David Laws MP referred to this as “the inner Cabinet”. I am sure that more will be written about the workings of the quad in future. From my observation from outside, it is a very powerful part of the Government that has played its role in keeping the two coalition partners together on a very solid basis, with only one or two exceptions that I have referred to before.
In looking at the end of the Parliament, the committee has made important recommendations as to how contact and discussions with civil servants should take place. They are a development of the present practice and maintain the important principle that parties should have discussions with the Civil Service for the purposes of developing policy and understanding policy issues and that these discussions should be confidential. It is also important that, while few important decisions are taken during the purdah period, the business of government goes on and conventions are respected to ensure that this happens.
The most worrying thing I heard today was from my noble friend Lord McConnell about what is happening in Scotland with regard to the papers of the previous Administration. That is a very unfortunate development and one that I hope can be resisted in future.
In conclusion, I again thank the Constitution Committee and my noble friend Lady Jay for an excellent report and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this has been a serious and worthwhile debate. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, both for this report and for her chairmanship of the committee. I have had the nervous privilege of appearing before it on one or two occasions, and I have always been asked extremely sharp questions.
I must apologise to the House that the noble Baroness has not yet received a governmental response. We had hoped that it would be ready before this debate. I will take back to the Cabinet Office the strong views expressed in this debate, and I will do my utmost to ensure that we have it available for the next chance that the House will have to debate constitutional issues, which I think will be the last day of the Queen’s Speech debate. I may not be able to deliver on that—I am conscious that in government at present the number of people who have to agree something of this significance is rather larger than it would be in a single-party Government; that is of course part of the problem of coalition government—but I will do my best.
Since the committee published its report in February, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place and the Institute for Government have both published reports on the final year of a fixed-term Parliament, which I have also read, as no doubt have many others who have contributed to this debate. The reports also provide some very useful information—in the Institute for Government’s case, resting on extensive interviews with civil servants—about what we may need to think about over the next 12 months, and indeed over the next few months, in order to prepare for the final months of this fixed-term Parliament.
There have been some elements of knockabout politics in this debate and certainly some elements of nostalgia for a firm two-party system; I also felt that there was such nostalgia in a great deal of evidence given to the committee. The rose-tinted spectacles that the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has for that classic golden age of British government of 1974-79 are fascinating. Some of us have seen that interesting play, “This House”, about the experience of the 1974-79 Government, and that is not quite the quality of government that I remember. Some of us will have our doubts on minority government reinforced by that experience and our commitment to stable coalition strengthened.
Much of the evidence to the committee—which I read with fascination on Sunday—suggested that coalition will prove to have been exceptional; that single-party government is purer and clearer than coalition; that voters can give only one Government a mandate; and that if no party gets a majority of seats, it will be cleaner and somehow more democratic for the largest party on its own to form a minority Government. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, got a little close to saying that in describing his attitude to mandate. Perhaps off the Floor of the House he and I might discuss the difference between the Burkean view of parliamentary democracy and the populist view of popular democracy in which a general election is in effect a referendum to choose among the manifestos of the parties. I am for a parliamentary democracy; and in the British constitution as conventionally understood, it is Parliament that chooses the Government, and the Government rest on maintaining a majority in Parliament.
As the noble Lords, Lord Lang and Lord Norton, said in the evidence, ours is an adversarial constitution based on the assumption that politics has to be based on the alternation in power of two mass parties contesting for power. As a number of noble Lords have also said, our constitution now has to adjust to the disappearance of mass parties and the splintering of popular loyalties. The latest public opinion polls, which your Lordships have all read in the past two or three days, show that the largest party is at 33.6% of the electorate. The second largest is at 31%, with two other parties at over 10%. There are some eight to nine different parties now represented in the House of Commons, depending on how one counts the Northern Ireland MPs. I note that the Prime Minister had a reception last week for the unionist MPs for Northern Ireland, which suggests that the potential for future government is being thought about in all sorts of ways. It is more likely that the diversity of parties will increase in the next Parliament, rather than decrease.
I note, from a discussion within the Labour Party and in the Guardian, the 35% strategy, and that Labour might perhaps hope to win a majority of seats on a third of the vote, or possibly even to form a minority Government on its own on the basis of 32% or 33% of the vote. There is a question of legitimacy here. I noted with great amusement in the 9 April evidence that the Deputy Prime Minister gave to the Constitution Committee that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, asked him what he thought was wrong with an appointed second Chamber. He said that there was a question of legitimacy, to which the noble and learned Lord said, “Only legitimacy?”. Legitimacy is a problem for government.
With this coalition Government we have had four years of remarkably stable government. I recall all the predictions from the Labour Benches in this House and the other place, to start with, that it would not last a year. It is highly likely at the next election that the people will fail or refuse to elect a majoritarian House of Commons for a single party. That will face us with the choice of changing the people, as the Leninists would like to say, or agreeing to adapt the constitution. I think that it is quite clear that we will have to adapt the constitution, and this report helpfully suggests a number of ways in which we should adapt.
From my experience of coalition Government, however, there are a number of coalition practices that ought to be practices of good government for any Government. We have returned to collective responsibility. We have had more formal meetings. Sometimes I feel that one of the problems with coalition Government is that it takes infinitely more time. There have to be more meetings—of our side and their side as well as of the two of us together. However, it means that government decisions are in most cases rather better considered. As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said, coalition strengthens the careful consideration of policies and limits unconsidered ministerial initiatives.
I also read in some of the evidence given to the committee a suggestion that coalition weakens the Prime Minister and that what we want is a really strong, effective, executive Prime Minister. After the experience of Tony Blair as Prime Minister, I think that there is quite a strong case for saying that having an Executive who are more effectively constrained by Parliament and collective discussion among different parties are good things for good government.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton, made some odd remarks about inexperienced Ministers. My recollection is that after 13 years of a Labour Government, virtually no incoming Ministers in the current Government—Conservative or Liberal Democrat—had prior ministerial experience. The question of whether there should have been more training—the sort of work the Institute for Government is now offering—is one that we will all have to consider further.
The rose-tinted spectacles also touched on what the final years of single-party government were like. I remember the Major Government in 1996-97, with all the remarks about the “bastards” doing their best to stab the Prime Minister in the back. We all have memories of the last year of the Brown Government in 2009-10 and of the last year of the minority Labour Government in 1978-79. All demonstrated that each of our established major parties is itself a coalition—and sometimes an unstable and ill-tempered coalition at that.
A range of issues was raised in this excellent report. First, on the formation of a Government, I think we can all strongly agree that it may well need more than five days, that we would not wish to follow continental practice by allowing it to extend too far and that an agreement that it would be 12 days before Parliament meets probably sends the right signal for government formation. I think we also agree that we have moved some way towards the concept of a caretaker Government. That is also a good thing in the circumstances. The question was raised of how much information and advice would be given by civil servants. I can assure noble Lords that Civil Service support for government formation negotiations will again be offered.
I strongly agree—and I trust that my colleagues in government in the response will also strongly agree—that the Queen’s Speech offers the occasion for a vote to accept a coalition agreement, although the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, was quite correct to say that it is a good thing if both parties are seen to accept it. My party had a special conference, and I have heard a number of Conservatives quietly say that they wish they had done something like that to tie their party into what they were doing. That would also perhaps be good practice.
A lot of time in this debate and in the report was spent on the issue of collective responsibility. I have to say that I was surprised to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, refer to “frequent” breaches of the doctrine of collective responsibility in this Government. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell—if I heard him correctly—referred to the “abandonment” of collective responsibility. The Cabinet Manual says that collective responsibility should rest upon collective decision-making:
“Before a decision is made, ministers are given the opportunity to debate the issue, with a view to reaching an agreed position”.
That is quite clear: collective responsibility comes from collective decision-making.
There have been occasions in previous Governments when Prime Ministers have taken decisions without consulting their colleagues—occasionally even the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and I would argue that, with a limited number of exceptions, collective responsibility in this Government works extremely well. The write-round has become much more the ritual procedure, partly because one has to make sure that Liberal Democrat and Conservative Ministers agree on things. It even reaches down to my lowly level. My stress level rose considerably last week when I received four 100-page reports with requests for my views on them by the close of play the following day because they had to go up to separate Secretaries of State. However, that is collective decision-making which ties us all in.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and others remarked that a lot of this is to do with trust and a willingness to compromise, and we all know that in any Government there will be some with whom it is easy to work on a trustful basis and others with whom it will be difficult. I remember being told by officials that in the 1974 to 1979 Government there were papers marked, “Do not show to Tony Benn”. There was a lack of trust within the coalition that was the Labour Party. On the whole, in any Government one can write down the rules but one needs to have a degree of give and take and a willingness to make it work that keeps the Government together. From my own limited experience within this Government, I have to say that it works pretty well. There are, of course, exceptions from time to time—trust does break down—but we are still here, and we will be here until May next year.
I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said that breaches of collective responsibility demonstrate the unsuitability of coalitions to the British system of government—although perhaps I misheard her on that. It seems to me that collective responsibility has had to adapt to coalition, and has adapted fairly well.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
What I said was that it lent some credibility to those who argue that the system of coalition Government was not as suited as others to our system of government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
As it happens, I visited Hughenden two weeks ago and bought and have since read the biography of Disraeli by the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. I have now discovered the very odd conditions under which he made the great statement that coalitions are not suitable to the British constitution. I think that we all now agree that the British constitution can adapt to a stable coalition Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and others raised the question of the Lords. Much of the question of what we do with the Salisbury/Addison convention was discussed in the Joint Committee on Conventions in 2007. I agree strongly with what the noble Lord said in his evidence, and has said again tonight, that the conventions have adapted since then. The Lords conventionally does not vote against the Second Reading of any Bill, but we are willing to amend it. The idea of the mandate and the manifesto Bill was much easier in the 1940s and 1950s, when parties got 48% or 50% of the vote. When giving evidence to that Joint Committee, I went back to that 1945 Labour manifesto, which has a page that lists a series of Bills that the Labour Party wished to take through. I compared that with the 1997 Labour manifesto, in which I could find no single firm commitment of that sort. We have all changed our manifestos in that way.
I have some sympathy with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on the numbers of Ministers in the Lords and their degree of seniority—and I have, of course, intense sympathy with his remarks on those who are not paid, but perhaps we will save that for another time.
The question of fixed-term Parliaments has also been raised. The question of how we handle the final year of such a Parliament is clearly one that we all need to address fairly rapidly. Some interesting comments have been made about the opportunity that the final year provides to think longer term and to prepare. One area in which I have some responsibility is the national security strategy, which should be prepared in the fifth year of a Government for publication early in the new term of the new Government. That is something that we should think actively about for some other areas as well. For example, we could all consider long-term spending trends within government and how far we cope with the inexorable rise in health costs and pensions, which we all know are coming down to us. There is a great deal there to discuss further.
On access to civil servants, I confirm that there will be no change in the long-standing principles set out in the Cabinet Manual and that guidance on pre-election contacts will be issued to civil servants nearer the time when contacts are due to commence, at the beginning of October.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, raised the question of whether we have to have a wash-up. As we have just discovered at the end of this Session, one can never predict until the end of the Session whether we will have agreed all Bills by the time the Session comes to an end. We may hope that we will agree everything by then, but we will have to see what happens when it comes to it.
Lastly, we have not talked very much about the role of the Civil Service. The role of the Civil Service in holding a coalition together is vital. I hope that the Constitution Committee will return to the role of the Civil Service in further inquiries. From my own experience of the high quality of officials and their remarkable tact and patience in managing the coalition Government, I have to say that we have been extremely well served. I have found the work of the special advisers for both parties absolutely invaluable. The distinction between their role and that of officials is also something to which the Constitution Committee might return.
I again apologise to noble Lords that they have not yet had the Government’s response to the report. I thank the committee very much for this invaluable report. It is a subject which we all need to think about as we approach the next election. The opinion polls will no doubt go up and down in various directions, but after the election we will have to face the question of how we form the next Government, whatever shape that may be.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and my noble friend Lord Kennedy for his comments. I, of course, accept the Minister’s apology to the committee and to the House for the delay in the Government’s response. I hope very much that his aspiration that it will be available in time for the Queen’s Speech will be fulfilled.
I am very grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate. Even by the usual high standards of House of Lords debates on Constitution Committee reports it has been exceptional. It has been illuminated by a great deal of first-hand experience from a former Cabinet Secretary, a former Leader of the House and those who have taken part in the Liberal Democrat proceedings. As I say, that illuminated the debate.
We should all take note of what the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, said about looking to the future rather than the past. I have to say in parenthesis that, when we look at the past, my sympathies are not surprisingly with the view of the past held by the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue. However, taking up the specific point made by the noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, I think that we will face what has been described as a challenging 12 months in the fifth year of this Parliament and this Government. Whether we can hold our breath and do some work on the retrospective scrutiny of committee inquiries I rather doubt, but it is an extremely interesting idea.
As I said at the beginning of the debate, this is a very significant report by the committee. The debate tonight has illustrated again what we knew when we held the inquiry—namely, that the line between constitutional debate and raw politics is very fine indeed. This debate has reflected the findings of our inquiry in that even the most neutral and objective taking of evidence and deliberation, which we certainly seek in the Constitution Committee, can be translated into raw and tough politics. I hope that this subject will be mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I look forward to that.