Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Earl of Onslow Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I hope that the wider electorate reach a sensible conclusion. We shall know soon enough.

[The Earl of Onslow]

As the leader of the Labour Party has been discouraging the Deputy Prime Minister from taking any part in the AV campaign, it will be interesting to see the outcome.

[Lord Grocott]

I am interested but also worried because I care deeply about the outcome of the referendum and the damage that I believe can be done to our constitution. But we must not go back over that. It has been concluded and now it is for the people to decide.

I do not favour any of these changes, but if they are to go ahead the public need to be consulted. A referendum should be considered to determine whether there should be a four or five-year fixed term because of what I hope the Committee will agree is a powerful point: that the Bill reduces the power of the electorate. It reduces the number of occasions on which the electorate can be consulted.

If you reduce the power of the electorate, which the Bill undoubtedly does, then surely the electorate have the right to be consulted about that. It was right in 1975 for the then Labour Government to have a referendum on the Common Market, as it was then called, because it reduced the power of this Parliament. By the way, I voted no in that one. It is right that the choice should be given to the public. It is unarguable that the Bill reduces that power.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I do not accept that. It might indeed be desirable to have a written constitution, but that is a matter for another day.

I accept that the Bill provides for an important constitutional reform, but it is not a fundamental change to our constitution. I say that for a number of reasons. First, in terms of whether or not a referendum is appropriate, the fixed term proposed is within the existing maximum term of a Parliament. Under the 1911 Act, Parliament can last for up to five years; under this Act a Parliament will last for five years unless either of the trigger mechanisms for an early dissolution is activated.

[The Earl of Onslow]

May I interrupt? Actually, it is a fundamental change. As the Bill is not subject to the 1911 Act, we can veto this Bill because it seeks to extend the life of Parliament. That is a fundamental constitutional change, which in my view should be resisted at all possible costs.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, the noble Earl is entirely right to say that the Bill is capable of extending a Parliament under the two-month extension proposal. That is the reason why the Parliament Act does not apply. That does indeed give this House the right to veto the legislation, but it is a non sequitur to suggest that it follows from that, and that alone, that this is a fundamental reform of the type to warrant a referendum.

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I look upon this amendment, as I am sure noble Lords who spoke to their amendments look upon those amendments, as a probing amendment, and not as an issue on which we should even begin to contemplate dividing the House today. However, I do think that it is up to the Government to try to produce what I would call a coherent pattern of constitutional reform. In recent years the worst thing about constitutional reform—I referred to it in my maiden speech a couple of weeks ago—has been what I call back-of-the-envelope constitutional reform, something of which both Governments stand guilty. They say, “We’ll get rid of the office of Lord Chancellor. Jolly good thing. Yeah, we’ll announce it”. Of course we all know what happened. Another example is the negotiations over the formation of the coalition, which I gladly support. The leader of one party says that he wants certain constitutional changes, while the Prime Minister is keen to reduce the size of the House of Commons, so they put them together. However, there is not a really thoughtful approach. There has been no opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny. There has been no opportunity to consider and contemplate papers, green or white. Although some people quote Harold Wilson who said that royal commissions take minutes and sit for years, royal commissions do not have to sit for years. It might have been far better, and the basis for a far more coherent approach, had a royal commission on the constitution been established to look at all these issues and at the role and composition of each House of Parliament and what it should do and not do. What we are doing is having piecemeal constitutional legislation. It is back-of-the-envelope stuff. I think that there is a time to pause and reflect. I hope that between now and Report we will see some reflection and some convincing answers to some of the very important issues that have been raised today and that will doubtless be raised at subsequent stages as we debate this Bill.

[The Earl of Onslow]

My Lords, I crave your Lordships’ indulgence and apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. There was a slight horlicks done by our Whips’ Office, for which I apologise.

This Government, who I support extraordinarily strongly, have the opportunity to produce some of the greatest social reforms and improvements for the benefit of this country since 1911. If Iain Duncan Smith gets his welfare reforms right, that will be a major contribution to the well-being of this country. If George Osborne gets the economy right, it will be of major benefit. If education reforms and medical reforms are as good as I personally think they are going to be, these will be the successes of a very great Government. But why have they gone completely doolally over constitutional change?

The trouble with this country is that constitutional change is extraordinarily easy. Every other country has complicated locking mechanisms in it. The Bill reduces the power of the House of Commons, reduces the power of the electorate and increases the chances of chaos. In 1870 or 1871, the French Government resigned. Either the President or the Prime Minister refused a dissolution—I cannot remember which. As there was no possibility of a dissolution, they played the game of pass the parcel and wrecked French government from 1870 until 1945. That is bad constitutional form. We would do the minimum amount of harm by adopting something along the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, says. In my 30 or so years in this House, I have regarded myself as a disloyal Conservative, and I will go on being a disloyal Conservative. If they are doing something that I believe is as fundamentally wrong as this, I will say so. That does not mean that I will come and join you over there.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I, too, support the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, as to the need for careful consideration of constitutional reform. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, accurately pointed out that the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, did not suggest that a referendum is required in relation to the introduction of fixed-term Parliaments. As the Committee well knows, the Constitution Committee expressed grave concern in paragraph 20 of our report that this Bill owes,

“more to short-term considerations than to a mature assessment of enduring constitutional principles”.

I suggest that the Government’s position in relation to whether a referendum on constitutional reform is appropriate is precisely a matter that appears to be determined by short-term considerations—alternative vote, yes; reform of this House and fixed-term Parliaments, apparently no.

It is very difficult to deny that the Bill that we are currently considering will introduce major constitutional reform. In paragraph 40 of our report, we refer to the evidence that we heard from Professor Vernon Bogdanor in which he pointed out that the Bill, if enacted, will prevent,

“a newly chosen Prime Minister between Parliaments from going to the country”,

it will prevent,

“a Prime Minister who has a new policy for which he may seek a mandate from going to the country”,

and:

“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 is a major constitutional reform. I am no fan of referendums, but I would welcome guidance from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on behalf of the Government, as to what their policy is as to when a referendum is appropriate for constitutional reform and when it is not, and I would welcome an assurance that that issue is not determined by short-term political considerations.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

He has actually put it to Parliament for it to support. Parliament will have had to vote that through, as is quite clear because we have other amendments coming down to change that date. Unless circumstances arise that would trigger the mechanisms in Clause 2, the Prime Minister of the day will not have the opportunity to seek Dissolution when it might seem opportune other than to have the election on the date set down in the Bill. He will have surrendered that power.

[The Earl of Onslow]

The Prime Minister has said, perfectly reasonably, that he thinks his Government will go on until 15 May 2015. He has made a perfectly legitimate choice to the House of Commons, but binding his successors is a different matter altogether.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, my noble friend’s point goes to the heart of whether one should have a fixed-term Parliament, bearing in mind that no Parliament can bind its successor. We debated the arguments for fixed-term Parliaments at Second Reading. I believe that they would ensure that Governments were able to plan, as indeed could Parliament, for a fixed period, and that they would not allow a Prime Minister of the day to seek an opportune moment to go to the country earlier than the full length of a Parliament for partisan reasons. This is an advance on what we have at the moment.

The point I am making is that if the Bill becomes law as it currently stands, the Prime Minister’s hands will be tied. If he saw an advantage some time in the spring of 2014, it would not be possible for him to cut and run because, if the Bill was on the statute book, he would not be allowed to do so. The fact that the Bill ensures that Parliament cannot otherwise be dissolved means, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, remarked at Second Reading, that the Prime Minister has given up an important power.

We could debate whether the electorate have been denied as many chances to go to the polls as otherwise. The crude arithmetical approach—I do not mean crude in a pejorative way—adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, did not take into account that in no case since 1945 would any circumstances have arisen that would have triggered the mechanisms for early Dissolution or an early election under Clause 2; he assumes that that would never have happened. However, if one looks at history, it may well have happened in 1951 when there was a consensus between the parties that an election was needed. It may well have happened in February 1974. I know that my noble friend Lord Cormack thinks that the then Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath, was wrong—and, indeed, as the electorate pointed out, he probably was—but there may well have been circumstances then in which it was felt that the Government of the day, and, one assumes, the Opposition, would not have stood in the way of an election, and that could have triggered Dissolution. It may well be that, as a result of that election in 1974, when there was no working majority for any party, another election may again have been agreed.

The point I am trying to make is that you cannot simply indicate that every Parliament would have gone the full five years since 1945 because there may well have been circumstances during these years that would have triggered an election. That is the whole point of the provision of trigger mechanisms, which no doubt the Committee will debate in due course. With issues such as no-confidence Motions and their wording, there is plenty of material and meat for debate.

My noble friend Lord Onslow, in his response to my noble friend Lord Marks, asked whether the Bill would extend the lifetime of this Parliament. My noble friend Lord Marks was right to say that it has the potential, if the power is used, to extend the date by two months in certain agreed circumstances, such as the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001. However, it is important to put on record that the general election last year took place on 6 May and that the first meeting of the new Parliament took place on 18 May; therefore this Parliament can continue until 18 May 2015. The latest date on which an election could be held is 11 June 2015, so stipulating the date of 7 May 2015 does not extend the life of this Parliament. The power is there to be used in exceptional circumstances and is subject to the votes of both Houses, and that is why the Parliament Act would not apply.

The amendment invites the Government to hold a referendum on whether the general election should be held in May 2014 or May 2015, although it makes no provision for the result of a referendum to be reflected in the length of a fixed-term Parliament after that general election. I think we get the spirit of what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is moving. My reaction is similar to that of my noble friend Lord Brooke; I am not sure what the public will make of being invited to choose the date of the next general election. I suspect that they would consider that as one trip to the polling station that they did not need to make.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked my noble friend Lord McNally which issues would be submitted to a referendum, and my noble friend replied:

“the Government believe that Parliament should judge which issues are the subject of a national referendum”.—[Official Report, 24/1/11; col. 671.]

Indeed, it will be possible for Parliament to make that judgment on any legislation.

As to the referendum on the alternative vote, let me try to put into context where we are. I do not make any bones about the fact that in the aftermath of the last general election, when quite clearly no party had an overall majority, there were coalition negotiations in which we tried to seek agreement. This has put in place a Government who are doing things of which my noble friend Lord Onslow heartily approves. I have been involved in coalitions in devolved Administrations, and there is inevitably an element of give and take and compromise in the negotiations. It is quite clear that the Conservatives did not support electoral reform in the shape of the alternative vote, and I do not shy away from the fact that some movement was required on that if there was ever going to be a coalition that would address the immediate economic crisis facing the country. There was therefore an agreement that there should be a referendum on the alternative vote, a policy that had been in the Labour Party’s manifesto. The Conservatives did not espouse a policy for fixed-term Parliaments, but they were prepared to accept it as a part of a coalition agreement because the Liberal Democrats were prepared to accept many other things. This has subsequently laid the foundations to get us out of the economic and fiscal mess bequeathed to the Government.

Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats had a commitment to a fixed-term Parliament in their manifestos, although neither of them said what the period would be—certainly the Liberal Democrats did not say so. We had party policy papers from the past, but we did not say four years in our manifesto. Crucially, neither party said that there would be a referendum on that commitment. Contrast that with the Conservative Party, which indicated that it wanted referendums on British membership of the European Union and ceding further powers to Brussels.

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[Lord Grocott]

I wish even more that we had had the benefit of a contribution from my noble friend and that she had been to New Zealand earlier. Perhaps we should take some advice on that front. However, her fundamental point was that, if you are going to increase the gap between general elections, you should certainly not do so without consulting the electorate.

I do not know whether the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, was supporting the proposal for a referendum but I very much agreed with him on what I think he referred to as the “constitutional madness” of the Government or a phrase of that sort. He said that they have got everything else right—which I obviously do not agree with—but they are getting constitutional reform wrong.

[The Earl of Onslow]

I said that it was doolally.

[Lord Grocott]

Doolally was the word. It is a splendid parliamentary term and I would not disagree with it.

There were many contributions to this debate but the only one with which I strongly disagreed was that of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, as he will not be surprised to hear. From his perspective, he did a good job in trying to persuade us that this is not a fundamental constitutional change, but the balance of the arguments we have heard suggested that it is. The only doubts that everyone has are in relation to there being another referendum, and I freely admit that I would not be absolutely thrilled at that prospect either. However, I hope that this short debate has established in the Government’s mind, even if it has not convinced them, that a lot of people believe that this is yet another major constitutional change. It diminishes the power of the British people by reducing the number of elections. It is surprising that the determination to proceed comes principally from the Deputy Prime Minister, who has made much of the need to reconnect Parliament with the people. How this proposal squares with that is something on which I look forward to hearing an explanation. However, in the mean time, with thanks to everyone who has taken part, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.