Assisted Dying

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 13th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they assess the application of the Director of Public Prosecutions’s Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to ask the Government this important and timely Question. On 25 February, it will be two years since the Director of Public Prosecutions published his Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide. I think that it is fair to say that those new guidelines were generally welcomed. They relate to a criminal offence which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years and, of course, to the general issue of assisted suicide, which, as your Lordships are aware and as we see from the speakers list tonight, continues to be of great interest and concern. Until this evening, the guidelines have not been debated in Parliament, so this is a very appropriate moment to hear the Government’s assessment of how they are working, not least because there have been two more recent publications which are pertinent.

In January, the expert Commission on Assisted Dying, chaired by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton concluded after 12 months’ work that the,

“legal status of assisted dying … is inadequate and incoherent”.

The commission proposed an entirely new legal framework. I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who was one of the commissioners, is speaking in this debate. Just last week, the General Medical Council published new draft guidelines dealing with the circumstances in which a doctor is alleged to have assisted a suicide. Those guidelines are now out for consultation.

As your Lordships can see, this is a very live current issue, but perhaps I may remind the House of the background. The Suicide Act 1961 explicitly gives the Director of Public Prosecutions discretion over whether to prosecute cases of assisted suicide. Over the years, this has led to complicated and difficult ambiguities in a particularly sensitive area. In 2009, the case of Debbie Purdy, who is suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis, came to the House of Lords. She was seeking clarity about her husband’s future legal position if he helped her to commit suicide. The Law Lords ruled that the Director of Public Prosecutions must as a result of this case create what they called a “custom-built” statement, indicating the various factors for and against prosecution. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who represented Mrs Purdy in that case, is speaking this evening.

The resulting policy guidelines, which we are discussing tonight, included 16 factors where the DPP will be more likely to judge that it is in the public interest to prosecute and six where prosecution is less likely. The six factors weighing against prosecution are: the victim had reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide; the suspect was wholly motivated by compassion; the actions of the suspect were of only minor encouragement or assistance; the suspect tried to dissuade the victim from committing suicide; the suspect was reluctant to assist; and the suspect reported the victim’s suicide to the police and fully assisted them in their inquiries. I should note that many people object to the use of the terms “victim”, meaning in this case the person who has died, and “suspect”, the assister in this context, but I understand that the DPP feels that these are unavoidable in the criminal law.

As so often, it is probably more helpful to look at individual cases; for example, that of Geraldine McClelland. Last December, Geraldine McClelland died in Switzerland, having been accompanied to the assisted suicide organisation, Dignitas, by both her brother and her sister. Geraldine, who was terminally ill, made clear her desire to control her own death to the extent that she wrote an open letter to the public, telling us:

“I am 61 years old and am dying from lung and liver cancer … I have chosen to travel abroad to die … I am not sad that I will die today … I feel sure this is the right decision for me and I am relieved that I won’t be forced to suffer any more”.

Frankly, I cannot imagine anyone thinking that it would be in the public interest to prosecute Geraldine’s brother and sister, who accompanied her.

It is worth recording that it is estimated that more than 180 Britons have travelled to Switzerland to die in the past decade, but, to date, no one has been prosecuted for accompanying them or assisting with arrangements. Interestingly, it does not look as though the existence of the new prosecuting guidelines since 2010 has led to an increase in the number of Britons going abroad to die. The media have reported that there were fewer in 2011 than in 2010. On the other hand, the Crown Prosecution Service reports an increase in the cases reported to the authorities—50 between January 2009 and December 2011 compared with only eight in the five years between 2003 and 2008. The greater willingness to come forward seems to have been prompted, in part at least, by the new prosecution policy and is certainly to be welcomed. Overall, the legally sanctioned clearer and more flexible approach to what are often emotionally and practically difficult, sad situations is a great step forward.

However, there are two significant problems with the policy as it now stands and I should be grateful for specific comments from the Minister on them. The first and perhaps most obvious is that, although Debbie Purdy brought her landmark case in the hope of protecting her husband from criminal charges—that is, if he helped her in the future to die—the new policy maintains the position that there can be no negotiated immunity before a crime is committed. It would be much more humane and realistic to establish that, when someone has, in the words of the new guidelines,

“reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide”,

their circumstances could be investigated before they die. Apart from anything else, if their intention was known in advance, the person wanting to die might be offered alternative care and treatment options, and might even change their mind.

A change in the law or extension of the custom-built guidelines to achieve this would also open up the possibility of involving medical assistance, because the second failing of the guidelines is the lack of advice to doctors and nurses. Indeed, the policy explicitly states that those with professional caring responsibilities are more likely to be prosecuted if they assist a suicide than a lay relative or friend. This is one of the 16 factors which tend to lead to prosecution. There is growing evidence, though, that this creates practical problems for health professionals looking after patients at the end of life. We are in danger of creating a paradox here. Doctors and nurses think that they are still actively precluded from any involvement in assisted suicide, but, on the other hand, patients and their families today feel encouraged to discuss it with the professionals whom they trust. It would be extremely helpful if there could be clear understanding about the nature and limits of any assistance that a healthcare professional might give. To take an example, is a doctor equally liable to prosecution if he prescribes lethal drugs or, on the other hand, he supplies medical records for a patient who has made the decision to travel abroad to die and asks his medical practitioner for them? I very much welcome the General Medical Council's initiative in consulting on legal issues for the medical profession as it is doing now and I hope that the council gives valuable guidance when that process is completed later this year.

Overall, the prosecuting policy has produced positive effects, which are widely supported by the public where polling suggests that more than 80 per cent are in favour of not prosecuting those who help a relative or close friend to die. I am very grateful to all the distinguished Members of the House who will take part in what may be a slightly breathless debate tonight. The number of speakers who have decided to take part indicates that this House takes this issue very seriously and we should perhaps be asking for government time to discuss it more fully soon. I look forward to the Minister's reply and particularly his opinion on whether the present policy is regarded as a permanent solution and settled, or whether it may need amendment and extension in the future.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I wish simply to make one point which I consider, very humbly, to be a pertinent matter and one which constitutes a backcloth to the issue before the House. The point was tangentially mentioned in earlier debates that this was not a matter which could be made the subject of the operation of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, but no one has argued in full as to its constitutional significance.

That Parliament saw fit in 1911 to make that so, and decided not to change the situation in 1949, is highly relevant to this issue. I would go so far as to suggest that it changes the whole balance of the relationship between the two Houses. I of course agree absolutely with what the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said about the general primacy of the House of Commons as the elected Chamber over this place. My submission is that, in relation to this matter, all such conventions and all such inhibitions are totally removed. Section 1 of the Parliament Act 1911 excludes two matters from its operation. The first was money Bills, which of course did not come into it in the first instance, and the second was a Bill which prolonged to any degree the maximum life of Parliament. Clause 1(5) of this Bill does exactly that. It enables the Prime Minister of the day either to reduce the period of five years by up to two months or to add to it by two months. It does not matter, therefore, whether it is two months, two years or 20 years; a wall has been breached, a wall created by the House of Commons in protection of its own position and the position of democratic government altogether. It made this House the sentinel of that boundary. In other words, when we disagree with regard to this matter, it is utterly exceptional as compared with any other disagreement. We are far from challenging the authority of the House of Commons; we are abiding by it and making it real and entrusted.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, several noble Lords this evening have referred—somewhat kindly, I must say—to the report of the Constitution Committee, which I have the privilege to chair, on the process of constitutional change. The Minister was kind enough to refer to it in his opening remarks. I look forward to the Government’s formal response to the report. It will enable the House to have a proper debate on the report, to which I equally look forward.

I suspect that the committee will be very surprised, as am I in immediate response to what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, to hear the content of the exchanges during the Summer Recess between the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in support of his original amendment. That seems to illustrate precisely, when we hear what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said, the inadequacy of process within the Government as related to constitutional matters. If it is the case that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, as he suggested and as was confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, came forward with what sounded like rather appropriate substitutions and amendments to his original amendment, particularly regarding the question of when such a sunset clause could be introduced in the new Parliament as well as the other questions which he mentioned, I am very surprised that the Government did not respond to them in the way that has been suggested and, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, simply put down the amendment in lieu that we have before us tonight. This is another illustration of precisely the problems about constitutional process to which the Constitution Committee’s full report tried to draw attention. As I have said, I hope that the report will be fully debated in the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, I am sorry, but the reality is it is not a fixed-term Parliament. Members were elected to a Parliament on the old system—quite a different matter.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

I ask the noble Lord, through the Minister, whether it is therefore the Government’s position that all the arguments and discussions we had about no-confidence Motions—as they related historically and as they will, presumably, be affected under the fixed-term Parliament legislation—will not apply to this Parliament before 2015.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That is not the case, as we know. I was making the point that this Parliament was not elected as a fixed-term Parliament. I am sure if the noble Baroness thinks about it, she will appreciate this. The arguments, I recall, when we debated the benefits of four or five years and whether it would affect the legislative plan of Governments coming into office, were that this would not happen with this Parliament, as that was not the basis on which it was elected. I am saying that you really need the experience of a full fixed-term Parliament to see whether the claims that have been made for it have been borne out. Therefore there is no way that is disrespectful—it is the only time you can have a meaningful post-legislative review, unless you are simply going to have an academic one rather than one based properly on experience.

I say again that I believe that this House has made an important contribution to this Bill and that its shape—in particular the trigger mechanisms for an early election—is vastly better because of the debates that we had. This Government are prepared to listen and have shown their willingness to do so. However, we cannot agree to something that we believe actually goes to the heart of the Bill and undermines one of its central purposes. For that reason, we cannot agree with the Motion as proposed, but we believe that it is proper and right to have a proper post-legislative review; one which, if the fixed-term Parliaments take their normal course, would have to be started within just over one month after the election or no later than six months after that. There is a set time limit under which the Prime Minister would have to make the necessary arrangements. On that basis, I commend that amendment in lieu to the House.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I think the problem would be rather less serious when we all knew when the election would be. The amendments strike very much at the principle of the Bill, which is why I am now addressing them. If anyone doubts how a Prime Minister can manipulate the present system for party advantage, they should think back to the events of September 2007, when a new Prime Minister was clearly planning an election for the autumn. Indeed, we now know that more than £1 million was spent on leaflets that sat with the Royal Mail waiting to be dispatched, when the Prime Minister suddenly realised that he might lose the election and called it off. Surely that is a great example of a Prime Minister abusing the system for party advantage.

Again, comparing this with football, would we consider it fair if Sir Alex Ferguson was allowed to call off a football match if he was worried about the form of his team and to rearrange the match for another day when it might perform better? Of course we would not. I see the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, who obviously regards football as a very serious matter, sitting opposite. I recall my own sporting hero Bill Shankly saying that football is not,

“a matter of life or death … it's more important than that”.

However, I would say that democracy is even more important. At the moment, in this period of great turbulence and concern about the rules of fair play, fair competition and fair enforcement of the law, we should take this small step towards making the rules of our democracy fairer. If a future Parliament wishes to take issue with the fixed-term principle or with any of the detail of how it operates, it should go through the same parliamentary processes that are currently necessary with this Bill.

On the principle of the Bill, let us consider finally that neither the Scottish Parliament nor the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the European Parliament, the Greater London Assembly or a single one of the hundreds of local councils across the United Kingdom appear to have a problem with the fixed-term principle for elections. Neither should we in this unelected House.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has returned to the principles of this Bill because it enables me briefly to return to the report of your Lordships’ Committee on the Constitution, which I have the honour to chair and which I note the Minister did not refer to. Well, he referred to it only in passing; he did not refer to the fact that the Committee was on the whole opposed to the idea of the principle of fixed-term Parliaments and was very much in support of the idea that if they were to be undertaken they should have four-year terms rather than five-year terms.

In supporting the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, it is more appropriate to refer again to the Constitution Committee’s strictures on the processes that produced this Bill. Your Lordships will recall that one of the things that the Committee felt most strongly about was that the Bill had been brought forward with as many political concerns and ambitions in mind as constitutional principles. In fact, we were very concerned that this was seen as a short-term measure designed to extend and protect the five-year term of the present coalition Government, and not something that was designed properly to change the constitution.

We also referred to the fact—as the Minister said in his opening remarks—that there was some time in Parliament for the Bill to be considered, although I noted that my noble friend Lord Howarth referred to the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny that we felt was desirable in this case. None of the pre-legislative scrutiny or any of the processes that we as a committee felt should have been undertaken to ensure that the Bill had widespread support in making a major change to the constitution had been undertaken. There was no Green Paper and no White Paper, and although Ministers appearing before the committee said at the time that this was because it was early in the Parliament—as the Minister said—we felt that there was no time limit on this Bill in the way that there was on the referendum legislation that was brought forward with equal speed early in the Parliament, so there was nothing to prevent this Bill being considered in what we would have thought was the proper way for a constitutional Bill of this significance.

I add in conclusion that your Lordships’ committee has now undertaken, partly because of our concern about this Bill, a full-scale inquiry into the process of constitutional change that we have just completed and which I very much look forward to having the opportunity to debate with your Lordships following the Recess.

[Lord Tyler]

I agree very much with the noble Baroness and respect the views of her committee. In thinking about process, does she think that the novel constitutional process that the amendments introduce is a short-cut, without proper process, to look at major primary legislation by resolution of the two Houses, which could be in conflict, or does she think that that is a proper constitutional process?

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, the committee’s position, and certainly my personal position, is that given the inadequate processes that have produced this legislation, some form of post-legislative scrutiny was needed. I do not remember whether the noble Lord was present when the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, led the previous debate on a similar subject, but the discussion included the issue of whether there was some way not perhaps of preventing the present Government fulfilling their five-year term, which the Constitution Committee certainly thought was the primary aim of this Bill, but of giving Parliament an opportunity to think again about whether this was an appropriate way for the constitution to be changed.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I wish to make a brief speech in support of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and to focus the House’s attention on one or two points. First, whatever our views on fixed-term Parliaments, we have debated that. The House, in its wisdom, has made its decisions and has not stood in the way of another place. We are to have a fixed-term Parliament and the next general election will take place in May 2015. That is not the issue this afternoon. However, we have also decided that it is entirely proper to seek to improve and amend what many of us consider to be an ill thought-out, unnecessary and bad Bill. That is what the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, seeks to do. I hope very much that we will support him if he decides to press his amendment to a Division, and that we will do so because we recognise the circumstances in which this Bill was produced.

This Bill is the creature of coalition. It came into being because of the coalition agreement. None of us has sought to deny the right of the Government to decide when the next general election will be. As I said, it will occur in May 2015. Attempts to bring forward that date were defeated—in my view, understandably, and probably rightly—when we sought to amend the Bill. However, because this Bill is the creature of coalition, there should be an opportunity for the next Parliament to consider whether it truly wishes to continue with this experiment. The next Parliament may well be one with a Conservative majority—I sincerely hope that it will be—but whether it has a Conservative majority or a Labour majority it is unlikely that it will be another coalition. This amendment merely gives the opportunity for the new Parliament to make its decision. Indeed, this has already been recognised on the Floor of this House by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford when he was dealing with the sunset clause on the European Union Bill. He pointed out that the two things were different. He said:

“As was explained in the debate”—

that is, the debate we had just had—

“one can see perfectly well why”,

our amendment had been passed. He continued:

“The coalition exists, and I hope that it continues to exist in strong fine form during this fixed-term Parliament, but after that we have a new landscape. Who knows who will govern? Who knows what the pattern will be? It made perfectly good sense for that legislation to have a limited life before coming to be re-examined”.—[Official Report, 25/5/11; col. 1861.]

My noble friend Lord Howell made a similar point when he wound up the debate on the sunset clause at Report on the European Union Bill.

We have before us the opportunity to say to the other place, “Please reflect on what you have done. Please recognise that we have not wrecked the Bill that you sent to us and that we have made no attempt to change the date of the next general election, but also recognise that what we have done is to give an opportunity for the Parliament elected in May 2015 to re-examine this matter and to decide whether, in the light of experience, it wishes to continue with fixed-term Parliaments”. We are giving that Parliament the opportunity to make that decision without burdening it with the necessity of introducing full-scale constitutional legislation at the beginning of a new Parliament if it generally desires to move away from what we have decreed.

As we know all too well, constitutional legislation takes a long time to get through Parliament. We may learn that lesson yet again in the not too distant future, so we are being exceptionally kind to the next Parliament in giving it that opportunity to ratify or nullify without long, protracted debate. Because of that, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, will be listened to and heeded, and that if he decides to put this to the vote the majority will be more than six this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I will come at this from a slightly different angle. Before I do, I will say that it is to your Lordships’ great credit that the Bill before us is much improved, especially the completely revised Clause 2. I regret that I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, for whom I have great respect, on this Motion, which drives a coach and horses through what the Bill has the potential to help us as a Parliament begin to achieve.

On many occasions during the passage of the Bill, several noble Lords have argued that our political system is not broken. I agree with that. My argument has always been that the problem we need to address is the public's lack of confidence and trust in the system. To fix the problem, we need to look for opportunities to change—not change for the sake of it, but change that delivers the kind of result that shows people we mean it when we talk about putting the public interest before our own.

I support the Bill not because I believe in fixed-term Parliaments; I support it because it is a means to a positive end. The Government and Opposition will have to face the electorate on a predetermined date, whatever the political conditions at the time. In other words, the Bill provides certainty to the electorate that the politicians have less room to manipulate the system for their advantage. It is not a silver bullet but a small step in the right direction—and it is change with a purpose. That makes it very different from changing the voting system, with which some noble Lords have compared it.

I did not support AV, and I believe that voters rejected it because it was only a means; it delivered no end. It was obvious that AV would not mean, as the leaders of its campaign tried and failed to argue, more hard-working MPs and fewer MPs likely to fiddle their expenses. If I were minded to make a party political point, I might say how ironic it is that the person who keeps telling the rest of us that we “just don’t get it” was in favour of AV and is, based on his Front-Benchers’ response to the Bill, at best confused as to whether he supports fixed-term Parliaments.

Even though the case is different, some noble Lords have argued that the public should be consulted on this matter as well: that if a referendum was held for AV, why not for fixed-term Parliaments? I would not have held a referendum on AV, either: but the reason a referendum on fixed-term Parliaments is not necessary is that our job is to find a solution to the problems that people have identified, and to take responsibility for the changes that we make.

I will offer my own analogy, which is not based on football. It is bit like Marks & Spencer asking loyal shoppers who have abandoned it because it has stopped supplying the kind of fashion that 40-something women want, to design next season's women's range. It is not the job of shoppers to fix the problem; it is up to Marks & Spencer to listen, understand and come up with the right solution to meet its customers’ concerns. If it starts supplying what people want, they will return.

Over the past few weeks, many commentators have made the point that the recent phone hacking scandal is the latest in a series of similar scandals that have already affected bankers and politicians. I agree with that. One common thread running through all three is the public's reaction to the evidence in front of them. It can be summarised as: “Now we know for sure that you’re all in it for yourselves”. Although expressed at varying speeds and to varying degrees, another common thread is the way the institutions responded to that dreadful public indictment. We have seen shame, apology and promises to put the House in order. Sadly, when it comes to the last of these, we are all found wanting. No one seems to want to change anything in a way that will show the public that we are in it for them. There is always a compelling argument for the status quo. Whether it is ring-fencing bonuses in banking, stronger regulation of the press or a simple guarantee to voters that they will definitely get five years instead of, “possibly five, but maybe not if we think we can get more years in power by giving you less”, there is always someone saying, “That is not the bit of the system that is broken”. That is not good enough and it is not the point.

At his press conference a couple of weeks ago, when he announced the public inquiries now under way, David Cameron concluded his remarks by saying that after all the inquiries had finished, we need to have a political system that people feel is on their side. If we are to achieve that, we need to restore public confidence in the system which currently we think works okay. That means changing things which might not be broken, but by doing them differently, which could create a different result: one that people can see clearly is in their interest and that therefore gives them greater confidence that we are truly on their side. Committing ourselves to fixed-term Parliaments without the get-out-of-jail-free card that this amendment offers is something that we can and should do.

The problem with this amendment is that it looks as though we do not really mean what we say. In short—and I hesitate to say this, because I know that it is not what your Lordships intend—this amendment is symptomatic of the problem that we are trying to solve. At the moment, we are demanding leadership in banking, in policing and in the media; we are asking them to make changes that might not be in their interest in order to show people that they operate in theirs and, in doing so, will, we hope, help to restore public trust. We cannot and should not demand of others that which we are not willing to do ourselves.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, let me say that I follow her argument. She sees this Bill as a way of increasing public trust and public involvement in the political process. Does she accept that had fixed-term Parliament legislation been in place since the Second World War on the five-year basis, there would have been four fewer general elections?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As I said in Committee, when we talked about the length of Parliaments being either four or five years, I really do not think that that is the issue. People are not looking for more general elections. They are looking for a system that gives them the confidence that we want to work in their interest.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

That is a very interesting point and I shall contemplate it.

I come to another point. It would seem that the noble and learned Lord has a problem with the two-week thought process—the cooling off period that the noble Baroness referred to. I would like to know whether he stands by the statement by Mr Christopher Bryant in the other House, who said:

“We quite like the provision for two weeks—it seems sensible if an alternative coalition or Government could be formed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/10; col. 361.]

He also said:

“The Government—I think rightly—want to say that after a motion of no confidence, there could be two weeks during which the House could, if it wanted, pass a motion of confidence in either the same Government, presumably, or another Government, with either the same Prime Minister or a different Prime Minister, with a different set of ministerial colleagues”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/10; col. 359.]

That flexibility was very admirable and a great deal more supportive, if I may say so, of the Government’s position than would be implied by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has said. It may be that he or one of his noble friends may wish to come back and say whether Mr Bryant was misled, or whether I was misled by that interpretation.

Amendments 20C and 22ZD have so many negatives that I am in something of a spin, even after the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, explained them to me. If the intention is to make a major change in the circumstances immediately following an election, there is a good case for that: it is a very attractive proposition. The fact that the leader of the party who seeks to form an Administration should bring both the Administration and his or her programme to the House of Commons for it to be endorsed at the outset of a Parliament would emphasise that we are not electing a Government but a House of Commons, which in turn gives responsibility and power to a Government. However, it may be rather too late in the passage of this Bill to introduce changes of that scale and radical intent.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, as usual gave us a very interesting attempt to define and pin down the issues, but I think that he conceded that Amendment 20 may be the right way ahead.

We have made huge progress. As others have said, this is very much to the credit of my noble and learned friend, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. Again, it illustrates some very important points that we should all take account of. First and foremost, we have maintained intact the principle of the Bill that was sent to us by the other House. Secondly, if we pass the amendment and introduce a new Clause 2, that will remove any possibility of any weakening of the neutrality of Speakers of the House of Commons. That is obviously desirable. Thirdly, it still removes an important extra power from Prime Ministers and their Whips simply to decide that an issue of detailed policy is a matter of confidence. All three of these achievements are truly welcome. I hope that the House will support Amendment 20.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, the House has been very generous in its consideration of the report of the Select Committee on the Constitution, which I have the privilege to chair. However, one aspect of our report has received scant attention, although the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to it briefly. That is the question, also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, of government manipulation of the no-confidence process.

Having looked at all the amendments that have been tabled, I recognise, as do all noble Lords, that they are a vast improvement on what we were considering last week. However, it does not seem to me that these problems are met. I refer the House to the discussions that the committee had on this point with the Deputy Prime Minister. He accepted that it was not possible to exclude the possibility that the Government could manipulate Motions to this effect, but went on to say that,

“if a Government sought to do that it would be so transparent and so self-evidently grubby and self-serving that it would not do that Government any good at all”.

He assumed that if a Government manipulated the process in that way, they would be punished. However, the committee held evidence that suggested that international experience does not necessarily confirm that impression. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, referred to examples from both Canada and Germany of occasions where Governments achieved precisely that purpose by manipulating votes of no confidence in themselves. Our evidence suggested that scrutiny of those decisions and subsequent elections that happened as a result of them did not necessarily produce an electorate who thought that this was, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, so “self-evidently grubby” that the Government should be punished. In both the most recent cases, in 2005 and 2008, in Germany and Canada, the Governments who behaved in this way were re-elected.

The House may feel that this is too small a point to consider at this stage of proceedings. However, if we are in the business, as everybody has suggested, of improving the amendments that were before us and putting into statute something that we have always understood in this country and in the history of Parliament to be a matter of conventions, we need to be very careful about this matter.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am grateful for the noble and learned Lord's intervention, but he is ignoring the crucial distinction between the two issues. One is the issue as to what this Government are going to do. He accepts as we all accept that this Government can choose 2015 if they want. The issue that we ought to be discussing is not for this Government but for future Governments. It is entirely consistent, if I may say so, for us to accept May 2015 for this Government yet to say that the norm hereafter should be only four years.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

I wonder if I could draw the noble and learned Lord’s attention to the conclusion of the Select Committee report. He is right that in paragraph 17 of our report we distinguished between the long and the short term. That was in the context of the broader discussion of the relevance of fixed-term Parliaments. But when we came to draw up our conclusions, we said that,

“the majority of the Committee consider that a four year term should be adopted for any fixed-term parliamentary arrangement at Westminster”.

We went on to write to the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, to say that our first conclusion stated that:

“We acknowledge the political imperative behind the coalition Government's wish to state in advance its intent to govern for the full five year term, but this could have been achieved under the current constitutional conventions”.

The noble and learned Lord has already drawn attention to that point. We did not get a response from the Government on it and I understand that there has been no particular response forthcoming. But I emphasise that the conclusion of the committee was that a four-year term was preferable.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I certainly had not read the report, which I read carefully, as having drawn the distinction that I am seeking to draw between what this Government are going to do now and what future Governments should do. I had certainly not understood the report as suggesting that the committee would support four years for this Government. Thus, I am setting aside what we all accept—that any Government can choose when they wish to go to the electorate. That is all I have to say on Amendment 1. If it is put to the vote—and it appears that it will be—I shall vote against it.

Since the noble and learned Lord has gone on to develop the whole argument in relation to Amendments 1 and 3, perhaps it would be convenient for the House for me to develop my reasons for saying why I agree with him that for subsequent Parliaments the norm should be four years rather than five. That was, as he said, the clear conclusion, which has been confirmed, of the Select Committee. The reason it gave was an obvious one: that five years,

“would be inconsistent with the Government’s stated aim of making the legislature more accountable”.

With that, I wholly agree. Indeed, it is obvious.

It is not surprising that the Select Committee reached that view, since it was the unanimous view of all the experts who gave evidence before the committee, including such acknowledged experts as Professor Dawn Oliver and Professor Vernon Bogdanor. Exactly the same was true of all the experts who gave evidence in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons, including Professor Robert Hazell and Professor Blackburn. As has been pointed out, Professor Blackburn is particularly important because he has made a specific study of this issue.

If some of this evidence had been one way and some the other, or indeed if it had been subjected to any sustained challenge when it was given, one could understand the Government sticking with their five years. However, the evidence was all one way and was virtually unchallenged. That evidence simply cannot be brushed aside or disregarded, otherwise there is really no point in having Select Committees, or them listening to evidence, because the witnesses would all be wasting their time. I cannot help thinking that if the Government had been aware of the expert evidence that was subsequently given, both in the House of Commons and here, they would not have chosen five years in the first place. Indeed, the point was almost conceded—as your Lordships may remember—by the Minister in charge of the Bill. When he was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Powell, in the course of his oral evidence, he said:

“If we had been starting with a clean sheet of paper, we might have reached a different conclusion, but we started from our existing position where the length of a Parliament is up to five years”.

I simply cannot understand the logic of that reasoning. The question is what the norm is, not how it relates to the existing maximum.

Alongside all that weight of evidence, many noble Lords also spoke at Second Reading in support: the noble Lords, Lord Hennessy, Lord Grocott, Lord Norton and Lord Morgan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, were all in favour of four years. To that list we must now add the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup—I do not know whether he is in his place—who made a most impressive speech at Committee in favour of four years; as well as my noble friend Lord Martin, and of course the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, himself. All these noble Lords were well aware of the only argument that I know of in favour of five years, which is roughly as follows: it takes an incoming Government a year to get going and the last year is spent in preparing for the election, which leaves only three years of a five-year Government for implementing policy. If there is anything in that argument at all—and I suggest there is nothing—it is surely outweighed by the need to make Parliament more, rather than less, accountable to the electorate, The electorate should be able to get rid of Governments who are tired and unpopular, for whatever reason, after four years rather than five. That is why, while I will support the Government on Amendment 1, I hope that they will accept Amendment 3.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I have made the point that it is not the Government who are proposing four years for subsequent Parliaments; we are proposing five years. I indicated that if we had proposed five years for this Parliament and four years subsequently, that would have been the subject of legitimate criticism. But that is not what we propose—we propose a consistency of five years. I will come on to argue why we believe that five years is right for subsequent Parliaments as well.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

I understand the noble and learned Lord’s point. However, as I tried to ask on previous occasions, does he take the point that a five-year term for this Parliament and this Government could have been achieved in a way that did not involve this Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Clearly the Government could have continued for five years, but the point is that the Government are seeking to introduce the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. In wishing to introduce that principle, we believe that it should apply to this Parliament as well. It is not just the length of time; it also involves the trigger mechanisms for an election other than at the end of the five years. In terms of consistency, we are saying that what is right for the future—and we are self-evidently legislating for the future—is something that this Parliament should equally be obliged to have regard to and, indeed, to be bound by. I hope that I can make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

Parliament should set out now what we think are the constitutional principles now and in the future. Surely in this House we are not seriously arguing that Governments should be given the opportunity regularly to manipulate Parliament, after every election, into choosing whether or not to be subjected to a fixed-term rule. The Bill as drafted provides for a constitutional lock on the length of Parliaments, to take politics out of election timetables. That is its purpose, and it is a purpose I strongly support. By contrast, I fear that the amendments add more politics to election timetables. Imagine the party pressures immediately after a general election when the country and the parties have been subjected to extraordinary partisan argument and controversy. We would be right back into the simple party-political advantage game immediately after that peculiarly partisan situation. On that basis, however seductive the amendments and however distinguished the authors, the amendments, though doubtless very well intentioned, are flawed and I hope your Lordships will reject them.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

Before the noble Lord sits down, will he help me with the force of his argument about the imposition of party politics on the kind of provision that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and his associates have suggested to the House when that will take place, as I understand it, immediately after a general election? It is not, as it was in the circumstances which he describes, something that Prime Ministers could calculate towards the end of a Parliament was to their party advantage, or was not, as the case may be.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Baroness may recall that I was elected on 1 March 1974, and given the convention—it was referred to earlier—that normally it is six months before another election is agreed to by the monarch, that would have been precisely the situation. It was entirely wrong that the Prime Minister of the day decided for party advantage that he would ignore all the big economic problems of the summer of 1974, did nothing to disturb the popularity of his Government, carried on to the autumn without taking important strategic decisions about the future of the country and then went to the country in the autumn. That is the sort of situation that we should certainly avert because party advantage could, very soon after a general election, be uppermost in the mind of a party leader who would therefore take advantage and destroy the fixed-term legislation for his or her own party advantage.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has made an interesting speech and has raised a number of fascinating questions. But there is a danger that we will have a bit of confusion because Clause 2 is concerned wholly and specifically with holding an “early parliamentary general election” during a fixed-term Parliament in the event of the Government of the day coming unstuck for some reason or other. Although the remarks about the time taken to form the present coalition are intensely interesting, this clause does not affect what happens after a general election when there could be—perish the thought—unlimited time.

I believe that this clause is wholly misplaced. It needs to be deleted and replaced with something far simpler, more specific and more precise. At a later stage in the Committee’s deliberations, I shall seek to move an amendment to that effect.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

Perhaps I may help the Committee by saying that when the Constitution Committee, to which my noble friend Lady Hayter rightly referred, appeared to support the notion of 14 days, this was an entirely constitutional judgment in the context of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. It was not a political judgment.

Perhaps I may draw the attention of the Committee to the exchange between my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith and Mr Mark Harper when he appeared before the Committee. My noble and learned friend suggested to Mr Harper that this was a complete change from the previous practice:

“For example, we could end up with Labour and Liberal Democrats. That could not happen under the present system, could it?”.

However, Mr Harper replied:

“That depends on the way people conduct themselves, but I think that it could”.

He said that if it was “early in a Parliament” that the Government were defeated, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just suggested,

“and there was a viable alternative government and—prior to having published this Bill—a Prime Minister had sought a dissolution, it is perfectly possible that a dissolution would not have been granted”.

My noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith asked him if there was a recent example of that, to which the answer was no.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, maybe “safety valve” leads to a misleading impression of what is meant. It is not a safety valve for the Executive; it is a safety valve for Parliament. If Parliament recognises that it is no longer able to function, there is one mechanism for finding a way out of that breakdown, and that is by calling an election. That is certainly not to the Executive’s advantage. Alternatively, where a Government have lost the confidence of the House of Commons and no other Government can be established, again, there is a mechanism for an election to be called. I do not believe that in any way helps the Executive.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

I go back to my point about the use of the phrase “safety valve”, which I think appears throughout the Constitution Committee’s report in quotation marks. The question about whether it is for the Executive or the legislature is not one we pursued. In response to the exchanges we have just heard between the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, one is brought back to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Grocott: “Why make this so complex? Why not just stick with the present position?”. Everything that the Constitution Committee said about this was in relation to the complexity of the provisions in this Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I think it is also fair to say that the general trigger mechanisms, if I can call them that, were generally supported by the Constitution Committee which had a lot of negative things to say about this Bill.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble and learned Lord again but that is precisely the point I was making earlier. Those were the understandings within the context of this Bill and not the political judgments which have been expressed, rightly, in this debate.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for confirming that in the context of this Bill these were identified as the correct mechanisms. As I indicated, if passed into law, this Bill will certainly bind this Government and this Parliament, and it will also look to the future.

The problem of the position being abused also engaged the concern of the Constitution Committee, and much of the noble and learned Lord’s Second Reading speech was devoted to that. Again, if you just had a straightforward, simple Dissolution which could be conjured up by the Government of the day, that would drive a coach and horses through a Bill which was intended to lead to a fixed-term Parliament. If the Prime Minister could conjure up a vote of no confidence knowing that would trigger a general election, it would restore the power of Dissolution with the Prime Minister.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

It is a very hypothetical situation. Any new Government, as the noble Lord suggests, would have to be subject to a positive vote of confidence. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says that they would get it. That does not necessarily follow because clearly the two parties do not command a majority in the House of Commons. It is hypothetical but, if the other Government were formed, possibly involving the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, and it commanded the confidence of the House of Commons, which is crucial, the fixed term would continue to its natural conclusion.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I hesitate to repeat the quotation that I gave from the Constitution Committee’s proceedings in the last debate, but surely the answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is the one that Mr Mark Harper gave to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, in response to exactly the same question—hypothetical though the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, suggests it is—which was that it depended on the circumstances,

“but I think that it could”.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, asked him whether it could produce a Liberal Democrat and Labour Government, and that was the answer that Mr Mark Harper gave.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

There is the important qualification that, if we were in a scenario where this Bill was law, it would also require that there had been a vote of confidence in that Government by the House of Commons. Subject to that qualification, I think the answer is exactly as the noble Baroness indicated.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

I apologise.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords—

[Lord Rennard]

I thank the noble Lord for that.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My remarks are exactly on this point.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Jay of Paddington Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I join noble Lords all around the House in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on his sparkling maiden speech. I was very touched by his kind references to my father, James Callaghan. It was very kind of him to speak in that way.

I declare my interest as chairman of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution, of which we have heard much this afternoon in contributions from Members—again, on all sides of the House—who referred to its substantial report. I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, who reinforced many of the points that the committee made about the historical problems that it saw with this legislation. We took the view that this was of sufficient importance that we needed to hold a full inquiry into fixed-term Parliaments, and not simply scrutinise the Bill. Therefore, our report contains reference to the general issue as well as the particular issues in this legislation.

It is worth, even at this stage of the debate, simply elaborating some of the process and outcome of what the committee discovered and heard from witnesses, who included people from many of the countries that already have fixed-term Parliaments. It is important to say that we have, as the House knows, now had a response from the Government, although I must say to the Minister that this was published only yesterday. It was therefore again outside the convention that responses to Select Committees should be made within two months. As we have heard from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, the committee’s report was published in the middle of December. Within the two-month limit, we should certainly have heard from the Government by 14 February. However, at least on this occasion—I am sorry to go back into the past—it was here in time for Second Reading. The House will remember that on the previous constitutional Bill—the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—the Government response was issued only at Third Reading. In another place the Government failed to respond in time for the consideration even of your Lordships’ amendments.

At the time, Mr Graham Allen MP, the chairman of the committee of a similar nature to ours in another place, described this as a failure of duty to Parliament. Noble Lords will remember that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, referred to it as being a “deplorable occurrence”. I do not emphasise these points of process to go over old ground. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was kind enough to apologise for the Government’s dilatoriness on the previous Bill. Nor do I have an exaggerated opinion of the Select Committee’s significance. However, as has been said time and time again today, in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, as in the previous Bill, we have before your Lordships a Bill of great constitutional significance, about which virtually every speaker has made the point that there has been no formal public consultation beyond the rather random opinion polling. No Green Papers or White Papers have been published and there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny—all of which the committee unanimously thinks should be undertaken before Bills of this nature are ever introduced.

I know that the Deputy Prime Minister has said, as he told your Lordships’ committee, that he must move ahead rapidly with proposals for what he sometimes grandiloquently describes as the greatest reforms since 1832. Therefore, he has little time for these conventional processes. However, in these circumstances, where there is the pressure for rapid movement that has been vividly described by noble Lords, the Government should pay special attention to the work of parliamentary Select Committees, particularly—as in this case—when your Lordships’ committee has conducted a detailed inquiry and written a very full report.

I have not had time to discuss my comments on the Government’s response with my colleagues on the Select Committee. As I have said, this report was published only yesterday, which was at the end of our week’s Recess. However, I was interested in the useful and forensic dissection of it by my colleague on the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. I find both the timing and content of the Government’s response to the fixed-term Parliaments inquiry disappointing. It is slightly sketchy. For example, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, has said, the committee is concerned that the constitutional relationship between the provisions of this Bill and the Government’s other proposals for constitutional reform has not been adequately thought through. In reply, the Government simply reiterate that as a package they will provide for a fairer and more stable political structure. Frankly, that is not very adequate. Indeed, that same paragraph goes on in a rather worrying way to say, for example, that the provisions of the boundary reviews in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill require them to be held every five years, consistent with the five-year cycle of elections set out in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. This seems to me precisely to confirm the worry and concern that was expressed by my noble friend Lord Rooker when he intervened in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

When we turned to the policy issues, we as a committee considered two major issues of principle, as is our formal remit. The first was whether the Government’s case in favour of fixed-term Parliaments had been made and what the length of the fixed-term Parliament, if introduced, should be. I must tell your Lordships that on both these two issues the committee simply did not accept the case made by the Government. The Deputy Prime Minister told us that the basic motive was, as we have heard this afternoon,

“seeking to remove from the executive and the Prime Minister … the ability to play politics with the timing of the election”.

We recognise, of course, that in promoting this Bill, the Prime Minister is prepared to relinquish an important prerogative power. This has been emphasised round the House this afternoon. However, the evidence we received—I would like to speak a little about that—showed us that there is another important side to this argument. Authoritative academic witnesses and witnesses from other countries with fixed-term arrangements suggested that in practice the advantage to the Prime Minister under the current system had been “greatly overstated”. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, put that in a historical context. The witnesses told us that on most occasions when a Prime Minister “went early”, in the jargon, he or she would have won anyway. More importantly, the case was put to us that fixed terms could actually undermine the democratic process by preventing an early election being held when there may be legitimate demand for one. Several historical examples were cited and I shall mention just a few of them. These included following a change of Prime Minister—we have heard examples of that again this afternoon—when a Government with a very small majority were unable to govern effectively, or where a Prime Minister wished to seek a mandate for a significant new policy. All of these are described in some detail in paragraph 39 of our report but I will not elaborate on them now. Professor Vernon Bogdanor, one of our witnesses, also raised a particular contemporary issue. He said:

“Most importantly of all, because we could be moving into that situation with our hung Parliaments, it means that coalitions can change in the middle of a Parliament without the people being allowed to pronounce on that”.

This again raises the question to which several noble Lords have referred of whether it is important that Parliament should decide whether a Government continue or are reformed, or whether that decision should be taken by the electorate.

The Government argue that the Bill provides for the other place to vote in favour of an early election where there is a need for one, but it may be that in the circumstances I have described—they have been illuminated by several vivid examples from other speakers today—particularly in a hung Parliament, it would not be possible for the House of Commons to achieve a two-thirds majority for dissolution, as the Bill demands. The committee recognised that the arguments for moving along the spectrum—it is a spectrum—from a fully flexible to a fully fixed Parliament, as the Bill does, are, in practice, finely balanced. We must remember that the Bill provides only for a semi, not a fully, fixed arrangement.

However, as noble Lords have said several times today—the committee was very sure that this was the case—if the original proposal was designed, as the coalition agreement appeared to suggest, as a confidence-building measure to the Liberal Democrats to ensure that this Parliament lasted a full five years, it could certainly have been achieved under existing statutes. Witnesses suggested to the committee that it was not appropriate—we have heard this again several times—to confuse this short-term political motive with the fundamental decision to change the constitution. This leads, of course, to the question of the length of any fixed parliamentary term and here the Constitution Committee agreed with all those noble Lords who have said that they preferred the original 2007 Liberal Democrat proposal of four years rather than the five years which is now in the Bill. Most members of the committee thought that fixed five-year Parliaments were more likely to reduce democratic accountability than increase it, in the way that Ministers have said that they intend. It is, after all, worth noting, as our report does, that had all Parliaments since 1945 lasted the full five-year term, there would have been four fewer general elections.

The weight of evidence from British and international experts to the committee was against a five-year norm, as against a five-year maximum. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer has already quoted Democratic Audit, which expressed alarm that a five-year term would present,

“a reversal of a long struggle for more accountable government”.

Overseas experience, for example from Canada and Sweden, suggested, in the words of witnesses, that,

“there seems to be a kind of natural rhythm around four years”,

and,

“four years is more consistent with voter expectations”,

all of which appears inconsistent with the Deputy Prime Minister’s evidence to us that his “unambiguous aim” is to,

“make the legislature more accountable to the electorate and to introduce the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians”.

Our evidence suggests very clearly that this unambiguous aim may not be achieved by this Bill.

On the practical side, the Constitution Select Committee's report notes with concern the potential clash—this has been raised by several noble Lords—about the five-year term being adopted for Westminster elections and this clashing with the devolved institutions. Again, we unanimously think it is regrettable that the coalition Government did not try to consult those institutions to sort this out before the Bill was introduced. On another practical, but important, issue of the safety valves proposed in the Bill, we broadly accept most of the Government's proposals but I agree with my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton that we felt that it was extremely complex. We have asked as a committee for clarification of a number of detailed points, especially on the question of what constitutes a vote of no confidence and what the result of that would be. I hope very much that these points will be examined fully as the Bill progresses.

As noble Lords all round the House, particularly in the most recent stages of the debate have said—the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, mentioned this—there will be a large number of issues and questions which need to be answered and scrutinised in Committee and on Report. I very much hope that there will be sufficient time to do so. I recognise that the Government, as they say in their response to our committee, have already given additional time for scrutiny in the other place but I still think that this House has a considerable amount of work to do. After all, the Deputy Prime Minister has already conceded to us that,

“the principle should be to time these things in a way that allows for proper pre-legislative scrutiny”,

and he has also said that reform proposals should be brought forward in a more measured way in the future.

I hope that the House will be encouraged to learn that the Constitution Select Committee is now embarking on a new inquiry looking at the whole process of constitutional reform. We have sent out a call for evidence and it would obviously be very valuable if any noble Lord wished to contribute. The committee hopes that, at the end of this inquiry, we will be able to bring forward some constructive proposals for improvement.

However, in the mean time I do not wish to repeat the quote that both my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall quoted about the conclusion of the committee’s report, but I will give another quotation from the final report on our fixed-term Parliament inquiry:

“The policy behind the Bill shows little sign of being developed with constitutional principles in mind … We acknowledge the political imperative behind the coalition Government's wish to state in advance its intent to govern for the full five-year term, but this could have been achieved under the current constitutional conventions”.