Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(9 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree. I was struck by the rather churlish and sour note coming from a number of Labour leaders in West Yorkshire about a deal that amounts to a very significant transfer of power, money and responsibility to Leeds and the west Yorkshire area. It was warmly welcomed by Roger Marsh, the chair of the local enterprise partnership. It would be much better if we could work on a cross-party basis to welcome rather than denigrate those steps towards further devolution.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Only days ago, the Government appointed a Conservative Member of Parliament to the £45,000 a year job as chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. Today we learn that another Conservative MP is about to be appointed to another office of profit under the Crown. Is this not a flagrant example of jobs for the boys, and will the anti-establishment bit that is left in the Deputy Prime Minister condemn such appointments?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not entirely sure which specific instances the hon. Gentleman alludes to, but everybody remembers the explosion in quangocracy under the Labour Government when legions of placemen and women were dotted around the country by the Labour party. In fact, many of them are still in post.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(11 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I can confirm that we will do so at the earliest possible opportunity, but first we need to respect the processes of the Privy Council, as my right hon. Friend knows. Another, rival charter has been submitted for consideration at the Privy Council. We need to ensure that it is properly examined objectively and is not subject to undue interference. That process is now under way. He, like many people who voted on 18 March for the cross-party royal charter, is impatient to get on with it. I understand that. Our support for the royal charter voted for on 18 March remains, but we must also ensure that things are done objectively and reasonably in the Privy Council.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
But Ministers tabled a motion on 18 March stating that the royal charter would go to the May Privy Council. Did they not know that they would be beaten to it by the press barons of this country? Why can it not go to the July meeting of the Privy Council? If not in July, why can the Deputy Prime Minister not have a special meeting in August or September, or whenever? The House decided. Why should others circumvent the will of this House?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I hear the hon. Gentleman’s frustration, but he will recall that on 18 March there was only one royal charter in play: the royal charter that we adopted on a cross-party basis—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I strongly agree, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the way in which he has championed his constituency, particularly on transport links which I know are a bone of contention there and in the region more generally. I also know he agrees with me that the north-east in particular has great natural strengths that could enable it to become not only a national but a European and world leader in renewable and offshore technologies. That is precisely why the industrial strategies of my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary have been devoting so much attention to that sector.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Some people in Wales are apparently in favour of devolving crime, policing and the justice system to the Welsh Assembly, but I am wholeheartedly opposed to that. Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that devolution is not a devolved responsibility?
Succession to the Crown Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
It is not arcane; it is a pragmatic judgment. The Bill retains the requirement for permission from the monarch for those wishing to marry who are in the immediate line of succession. It seeks to confine what had become a sprawling requirement to a much more limited and pragmatic one.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I simply do not understand why the monarch would want to retain the right to forbid somebody to marry and to declare their marriage null and void because consent was not granted. On what basis would they refuse to grant consent—because someone involved was illegitimate, not wealthy enough, a commoner or an actress? Those are reasons that have previously been used for not consenting.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That, of course, is a matter for the monarch. It is a power of the monarch’s that has not been brought into that much dispute for a prolonged period. We had a choice: we could either remove it altogether or trim it radically to the six individuals in the immediate line of succession.
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said, I accept that there is a certain arbitrariness about the figure of six; it could be seven or five. The principle to limit the powers of the monarch to grant permission to marry to those who are in the immediate line of succession seemed to us to be the right balance to strike, but I accept that perfectly valid arguments of principle could be made otherwise. It is, however, a very dramatic change—pragmatic, but dramatic none the less—from the precedent that has been set from the days of George III.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I really want to make progress now.
The reform that limits permission to the six who are in line to the throne is made for practical reasons; the other two reforms are more about our values. The current rules of succession belong to a bygone era; they reflect old prejudices and old fears. Today we do not support laws that discriminate on either religious or gender grounds. They have no place in modern Britain, and certainly not in our monarchy—an institution central to our constitution, to the Commonwealth, and to our national identity too. With the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge expecting a baby and our having just celebrated our Queen’s 60-year reign, this Bill is timely as well as popular. It is also straightforward and enjoys support across the House, which, as I should know, is a rare thing in constitutional reform issues.
I will come to the Catholic provisions in a few moments, because I am aware that, as we have already heard, some hon. Members have concerns about their implications. On female succession, the real question that we need to ask is why it has taken us so long. This is a nation that prides itself on pioneering equality between the sexes: a nation of great Queens such as Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. A woman can, and has, been Head of the UK Government, yet still on our statute books, with Parliament’s official backing, we have succession laws based on the supposed superiority of men. That anachronism is out of step with our society, it sends the wrong message to the rest of the world, and it is time for the rules to change.
The Deputy Prime Minister
That is a practical and perfectly reasonable assumption to make. I would highlight the fact, however, that under the current provisions, even if we did not proceed with the Bill, an heir to the throne could marry someone of the Hindu faith and yet decide, not least because they would be acutely aware of their place and duty in the line of succession to the throne, that their children, if they had any, were to be brought up in the Anglican faith. That assumption acts as a bedrock underneath the status quo. We are only extrapolating that by adding the Catholic faith to all the other faiths that can be involved in a marriage to heirs to the throne.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way—he is being very generous. Does he believe that the monarch would legally be able to refuse consent to a marriage merely on the basis of somebody marrying a Roman Catholic? There is no provision that says what the monarch must bear in mind and, indeed, the old legislation, which we are repealing, makes it clear that it is the monarch with the Privy Council who makes the decision, whereas in this Bill it is just the monarch on their own.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we are not seeking to specify in legislation the terms in which the monarch provides that consent. We are certainly not specifying that that should be done according to the faith of the person who is marrying an heir to the throne.
In matters of constitutional significance, we should of course always proceed with care. Yes, we must always think through the potential knock-on effects of reform, but we also need to move with the times. Discrimination is discrimination wherever we find it, and just as we respect our traditions and cherish our monarchy, the House must never tolerate prejudice in our laws. Equality is, after all, a great British tradition too. I commend the Bill to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Making a small, concise amendment to an Act that has been on the statute book since 1701 is hardly acting hastily.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am being corrected by the historians on the Opposition Benches. None the less, this is something that has been on the statute book for more than 300 years. Let us remember that this is a very specific act of discrimination against one faith only. The heir to the throne may marry someone of any religion outside the Church of England—Muslim, Hindu and so on—but uniquely not a Catholic under the terms of the Act of 1700 or 1701. This is a precise change and it is being co-ordinated precisely with all the other realms that have to make the identical change in their legislation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(12 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I think that the general principle that there should be greater legitimacy when people take decisions in the name of the public and which affect the public is an important one, and it is not one that found a great deal of favour across both sides of this House when we debated it as it applied to the House of Lords. We have made considerable efforts to streamline some of the extraordinary blizzard of unaccountable quangos that developed under Labour. I know that various Ministers have made considerable efforts in their Departments to reduce the number of quangos and introduce greater legitimacy in public decision making.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister has taken an admirable position in relation to the Leveson inquiry. Would it not be in the interests of transparency for all the e-mails between Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, while he was working at No. 10 Downing street and corresponding about the future of the licence fee and many other issues, to be in the public domain before the inquiry publishes its findings?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Prime Minister has made it quite clear that he has provided all the e-mails and information required of him by the Leveson inquiry. On the inquiry generally, the hon. Gentleman also knows that my view has been for some time, given that we established the inquiry, which the previous Government did not do, that if the recommendations are workable and proportionate, we should proceed and seek to implement them.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(12 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
If the Labour party’s views have evolved over the past 100 years, which in this matter, if not in others, they may have, I hope none the less that the right hon. Lady will confirm that there was a clear manifesto commitment from the Labour party not only to support the principle of House of Lords reform, but to deliver it in practice.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I shall make a little more progress, if I may.
In 2007, the Commons voted overwhelmingly for a mostly elected second Chamber. Each of the main parties stood on a platform of Lords reform at the last election, and since coming into Government the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), and I have looked for every way to take it forward by consensus.
We convened a cross-party Committee, which I chaired. We then published a White Paper and a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Gentleman holds his views, although different from mine, with great sincerity, and I respect him for that, but in a bicameral democratic system there is nothing unusual about having two Chambers, both of which are either fully elected or mainly elected, and in which there is a clear imbalance, an asymmetry—a hierarchy, if you like —in the relationship of one Chamber with the other. I am sure that we can manage it here. The predictions that it would lead to gridlock and to rivalry between the two Chambers were made when reform took place in 1958 and in 1999. They did not materialise then; I really do not believe that they will this time, either.
The Deputy Prime Minister
If I can make a little more progress, I will give way.
Of course, this does not mean that every Member of this House agrees with every clause—[Laughter.] That is an understatement! There is no perfect blueprint for a modernised second Chamber. Even within each of the main parties, differing visions of reform can be found, and this Bill reflects a number of compromises that have been made to accommodate differences across the House. I say to Members of this House who have specific worries about particular aspects of this Bill that this is precisely what further scrutiny of the proposals, in both Houses, will be about. The concerns that remain fall into two main camps: the myths, which I will now seek to dispel; and the fears, which I hope to address. But before doing so, I give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).
Chris Bryant
The Deputy Prime Minister knows that I support reform and have done for a very long time, but there are elements of the Bill that I do not like, such as the 15-year term and the fact that it is not clear enough about the respective powers of the two Houses. If the Government are going to end up Parliament-Acting the Bill because the Lords refuses to deal with it, it is all the more incumbent on us to get it right before we send it down the corridor. That is why I say to him, regretfully, that his programme does not fit the bill.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would be intrigued if the hon. Gentleman could tell me—if not now, afterwards —exactly how many days Labour Members want.
The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) said today in The Guardian that the reason he is opposing the programme motion has nothing to do with scrutiny of the Bill:
“Within the rest of the legislative programme are loads of right-wing bills which will damage people in Britain. So I don’t think it is any part of our responsibility to try and get those bills into statute.”
In other words, Labour’s ulterior motive appears to be to disrupt the rest of the Government’s business. That is not a legitimate way of dealing with a programme motion, which is a perfectly reasonable way for the Government to try to make progress on this important piece of legislation without disrupting all other parts of our business.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We cannot just do something about it. [Hon. Members: “He didn’t!”] No, the hon. Gentleman did not, for 13 years.
I totally accept—I have spoken publicly about this—that it seems a little anachronistic that we have rules of succession that appear to discriminate against women, and that clearly should be looked at, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) rightly pointed out, this affects many other Governments as well, and it would be wrong of us to act in haste when we need to act in a way that is open and following discussions—not negotiations, but discussions—between ourselves and other Commonwealth Governments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I am the first to acknowledge that, whether it is the West Lothian question or reform of the House of Lords, these are of course not matters that are raised by our constituents or on the doorsteps as we campaign at election time, but it does not mean that they are unimportant. We discuss many things in this House, from local government finance to world trade rules and all sorts of things that are not raised from day to day in our local communities, but that are none the less important. That is why we as a country have been struggling with this dilemma for more than 100 years and why all three parties have a manifesto commitment finally to make progress on reforming the other place.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The thing we find most bizarre about all this is that it is a priority for the Government at this time. The coalition agreement states that they will continue to appoint peers to the House of Lords
“with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.”
There are currently 792 unelected peers, after a year of the fastest level of appointment of new peers in the history of this country. To get to the objective set out in the agreement, the Deputy Prime Minister would have to appoint another 269. Are there another 97 Liberal Democrats to make peers in the House of Lords? Should there not be a moratorium?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Every time the hon. Gentleman asks a question, I find it more and more baffling why anyone should want to hack his phone and listen to his messages. It is quite extraordinary. The point he has just made illustrates why we need to reform the House of Lords.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
The recall mechanism—as supported, I think, in the manifestos of all three parties—is for serious wrongdoing, as I explained in answer to previous questions.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am not quite sure that that is right, is it? Did not the Liberal Democrat manifesto say that people would be given the right to sack MPs who had broken the rules? The question then is: who gets to decide who has broken the rules? If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, it is the courts, that is a fairly straightforward process. However, if it was left up to voters, might they not think that if someone promised 3,000 more police officers and then cut 10,000, or promised not to raise VAT and then put it up by 2.5%, they had broken the rules?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I said before, wrongdoing has clearly been committed if someone is given a prison sentence, and I think that any prison sentence of any length should disqualify MPs. Otherwise, we clearly need to establish a mechanism here in the House to prove serious wrongdoing, and only once that has been established would we grant electors the right, following a petition of 10% of the electors, to trigger a by-election—[Interruption.] I think that the hon. Gentleman is asking from a sedentary position whether that mechanism should be without any kind of filtering here in the House. The honest truth is that if we did it like that, and had a sort of free-for-all, there would be a real danger of a lot of vexatious and unjustified claims being made against one Member by others.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree that in principle a clash of elections to the devolved Assemblies and to the House of Commons should be avoided. As I have said before in debates, there is a world of difference between the potential for confusion among voters being asked to vote for two different Parliaments that will in turn create two different Executives or Governments—a wholly more serious issue—and the coincidence of such elections with a referendum on a specific yes or no issue, as will be the case with the AV referendum and the elections this May. We have always accepted the fundamental assertion that we need to find a way around that. We have had ongoing discussions and will continue to do so with an open mind. We made the suggestion that the devolved Assemblies should have the power to shift the date of their elections by six months either before or after the general election. That has not been greeted with universal approbation, but it is none the less a sincere attempt on our part to try to find a way forward.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is being generous in giving way. Can he confirm that the provision set out in clause 1(5) will extend the maximum length of a Parliament beyond five years and that therefore it would be the longest fixed-term Parliament in the world, other than Rwanda? There is no fixed-term Parliament in the world of five years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has read the provisions of the Bill correctly, and I think that his point was confirmed by the Minister on Report. On the point about the coincidence of elections, Northern Ireland Office Ministers are conducting separate discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland, where the issues are slightly different. It would be inappropriate for me to prejudge the outcome of those ongoing discussions. We will of course endeavour to keep colleagues on the Opposition Benches informed.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on the theology of those things. The hon. Member for Rhondda says that he is wrong, but my understanding is that the Bill is fairly clear on that point, even if it a little opaque to me on that very specific point. As my hon. Friend knows, the provisions purely address highly exceptional circumstances that arise for one reason or another, such as unforeseen emergency circumstances. Foot and mouth is an obvious recent example of where it is self-evident that an election simply could not be conducted either practically or politically. That is what we had in mind when we drafted the Bill in those terms.
In conclusion, the Government believe that fixed-term Parliaments represent a simple but absolutely fundamental change: strengthening Parliament, providing stability and moving us towards the new politics that we have all promised the people of Britain. I commend the Bill to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course it is. It has been a principle for political and democratic reformers of all parties for generations that all votes should be valued in the same way. It simply cannot be right, for instance, that right now Islington North has an electorate of just over 66,000, and yet 10 miles away in East Ham the figure is 87,000. Voters in a constituency just 10 miles away have less value attached to their votes than those up the road. That is wrong. That is what we are seeking to remedy. It is a simple principle: all votes should be worthy of the same value wherever they are found in the country.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I know that the Deputy Prime Minister gets in a terrible lather whenever anybody has the effrontery to contradict him, but may I suggest to him that he could perfectly easily have his referendum on the day that he wants it by splitting the Bill? It is perfectly straightforward. He said that the main reason for cutting the number of MPs is to save money. How does he reconcile that with the fact that it is costing £12.3 million extra every year for the 117 extra peers he has appointed, that it is costing £11.2 million extra for bringing the boundary review forward, and that he is to double the cost of the boundary commissions by making them every five years rather than every eight?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Cutting the number of MPs will save about £12 million every year, and holding the referendum on the same day as other elections saves us about £30 million. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to incur greater costs for the taxpayer—
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is the choice of the coalition Government to say that we want to reform politics not in a piecemeal fashion, but in a meaningful way. To introduce both the right for people to have a say over the electoral system and to ensure that constituencies are of roughly the same size seems a perfectly sensible way to proceed. That is what we will do, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be whipping up the dinosaurs in the Labour party in the other place to stop us from doing so.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I would have hoped that the hon. Lady would welcome and support the proposal to hold a referendum on the alternative vote system, not least for the reason that it was in her party’s manifesto at the last general election.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman keeps saying “Split the Bill” from a sedentary position. We believe it is right to proceed together on reforming—[Interruption.] No—[Interruption.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(13 years, 12 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I certainly agree that it would be self-defeating if a reformed House of Lords tried in any way to mimic the House of Commons. Most bicameral systems around the world manage a clear division of labour between one Chamber and another. That is why the devil is in the detail—we must consider how long the terms are for any elected Members of a reformed House of Lords and in what manner they are elected in order to create a clear division of labour between the two Chambers.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman’s proposals on Lords reform refer in any shape or form to the historic convention on collective responsibility? I note that the new ministerial code of conduct refers to collective responsibility in exactly the same words as the old ministerial code of conduct, namely by saying that all Ministers must adopt the same position in public, but now contains the extraordinary new phrase,
“save where it is expressly set aside”.
There is an extraordinary rumour that the Deputy Prime Minister is thinking of not voting with the Government later today. Surely that cannot be right. Surely he is man enough to stand up and sign up to what he voted for in the general election—or at least to sign up to what he voted for in the coalition agreement. Otherwise, nobody will be able to trust a word he says again.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(14 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we will be publishing a Bill early in the new year, which we are drafting at the moment on a cross-party basis, to reform the other place. In the meantime, in keeping with traditions that were also pursued by his Government, appointments will be made as a proportion of and in line with the results of the general election.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is estimated that 200,000 people will be forced out of major metropolitan areas as a result of the Government’s niggardly proposals on welfare reform, which will turn London into Paris, with the poor consigned to the outer ring. That is the equivalent of three parliamentary constituencies, according to the Deputy Prime Minister’s desiccated calculating machine of a Bill. Would it not be iniquitous if, on top of being socially engineered and sociologically cleansed out of London, the poor were also disfranchised by his Bill? How does he propose to make electoral provision for those displaced people?
The Deputy Prime Minister
We all indulge in a bit of hyperbole, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman quite seriously that to refer to “cleansing” will be deeply offensive to people who have witnessed ethnic cleansing in other parts of the world. It is an outrageous way of describing—
The Deputy Prime Minister
No. We are saying that it is perfectly reasonable for the Government to say that they will not hand out more in housing benefit than those who go out to work, pay their taxes and play by the rules would pay when looking for housing themselves. We are simply suggesting that there should be a cap for family homes with four bedrooms of £400 a week. That is £21,000 a year. Does the hon. Gentleman really think it is wrong that the state should not subsidise people to the tune of more than £21,000, when people cannot afford to live privately in those areas? I do not think so.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(14 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make progress before giving way again.
Some hon. Members have asked, quite reasonably, why Parliaments will run for five years, not four. That is one of the issues that has been raised by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in its report. Let me explain: five years is the current maximum length for which our legislation provides. Five years is the length of Parliaments in France, Italy, and South Africa, among others, and it is the maximum length of Parliament in India. In the United Kingdom, three of the past five Parliaments have run for five years. Leaving aside the very short Parliaments, half of all Parliaments since the war have run for more than four years, so five years is both in keeping with our current arrangements, and has international precedent.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
But if the right hon. Gentleman is to give us all the statistics, he must add that since 1832 the average peacetime length of a Parliament has been three years and eight months—nowhere near five years, which has been pretty exceptional across that time. On the international comparisons, none of the other countries that he mentioned has the same structure with the Executive coming out of Parliament, so ours is a very different system. I urge him to look again at four years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am not entirely sure whether that last assertion is correct. The hon. Gentleman wants to give the House a history lesson, so perhaps I may refer him to the Parliament Act 1911, which introduced the current five-year maximum. The then Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, told the House that five years would
“probably amount in practice to an actual legislative working term of four years”—[Official Report, 21 February 1911; Vol. 21, c. 1749.]
That is a quote that I picked up from the Committee’s report, rightly pointing out that when a Parliament is expected to last for only four years, as is now the case, it very often ends up, in effect, a three-year Parliament. So our view is that by fixing the cycle at five years, we help to mitigate—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that that is a ridiculous decision. He knows as well as anybody else that for 12 or 18 months before an election is held, work in the House is blighted by all the parties politicking in advance of polling day. Therefore, if we want Governments to govern for the long term, we think five years is the right period of time.
Political and Constitutional Reform
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(14 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I recognise, of course, the outstanding job that my right hon. Friend does across a constituency that is by far the largest in the country. That is why, taking the cue from his constituency, we will specify in the Bill that no new constituency can be any larger than his present constituency—just shy of 13,000 sq km. As for the basis upon which the Boundary Commissions will make their decisions, the exceptions on the face of the Bill will be very limited—for obvious reasons, the two island constituencies that I set out, and the geographical cap in size that I specified. Beyond that, the duty will be on the Boundary Commissions to deliver what we have always intended should be delivered—constituencies that are more equal in size in terms of the number of voters in each constituency.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
If one were to cut the number of MPs but keep the same number of Government Ministers, as is laid down in statute, one would have increased the stranglehold of the Government over the House. If the Deputy Prime Minister is to proceed with the cut, will he undertake to cut the number of Ministers, and if so, could he cut it by 22?
Constitution and Home Affairs
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Clegg(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make progress and then I will give way again.
First, we need to relinquish Executive control. The Government are determined that no Government should be able to play politics with the dates of a general election. [Interruption.] I am addressing the point that was made. Parliamentary terms should be fixed for five years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
Let me make some progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. Let him hear me out first.
We need a new right for Parliament to request a Dissolution, taking away the Prime Minister’s exclusive and traditional right to call an election when he or she wishes. The majority required for early Dissolution—set at 55% in the coalition agreement—has clearly sparked a lot of anguish among the Opposition. It should; it is an important decision that will, of course, be properly considered by the whole House, as the legislation progresses. But the Opposition in their amendment today are wilfully misrepresenting how that safeguard will function. Their amendment deliberately confuses that new right with traditional powers of no confidence, which will remain in place intact.
Let me assure the House that we are already conducting detailed work on the steps that are necessary to remove any theoretical possibility of a limbo in which a Government who could not command the confidence of the House would refuse to dissolve Parliament and give people their say. That would clearly be intolerable. Any new arrangements will need to build on existing conventions, so that a distinction is maintained between no confidence and early Dissolution.
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman referred earlier to hoarding power. Will he explain the length of time that he is talking about—the five-year term—bearing in mind the fact that, since 1832, the average peacetime Parliament has lasted for considerably less than four years, at three years and eight months. Australia and New Zealand have three-year Parliaments. The countries with five-year Parliaments are Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and France. Which is he measuring against?