Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Grocott

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

I will of course be more than happy to answer the noble Lord’s question. I was waiting for it. We have not changed our position on the Front Bench since the last election—an election, I remind the House, that we lost. We support fixed-term Parliaments. Thus we are doubly disappointed by this disaster of a Bill, which has been rushed through with no proper consultation—no real consultation at all—and thus got so many vital, important things entirely wrong. First, on five years instead of four and, secondly, on the no-confidence safety valve, as it is called. That is drafted in a completely unsatisfactory way. It is unclear and, indeed, may turn out to protect the power of a Prime Minister so that there is no point at all in a fixed-term Parliament in any event. I hope that answers the noble Lord’s query.

[Lord Grocott]

I wonder whether my noble friend will give way for what I hope he will think is a helpful suggestion. Although he is quite right in describing the Labour Party’s current position in the aftermath of a general election commitment, any prudent party, when it has lost a general election, looks again at the policies that were in the document that it put to the electorate. I strongly suggest that that would be a good move and that it might result in our deciding that the commitment to a fixed-term Parliament was not the election winner that some might have thought it was.

[Lord Bach]

My noble friend is certainly right in one regard; it was not an election winner. On the other hand, I understand that the main opposition party is quite rightly considering all its policies, bearing in mind that it is in opposition and is likely to be in opposition for a little while longer.

I had not quite finished my fun, so perhaps I should not have given way to the noble Lord opposite so quickly. I hope that it will not be ungallant to suggest that this simultaneous change of mind might have something to do with the aftermath of the 2010 general election and the need to have a short-term arrangement that has the best chance of sticking for five years. If that is what was intended, fair enough. Political parties are absolutely entitled to come together on whatever terms they like, but why is there a need to cover up this short-term political necessity with a Bill that will change our constitution for ever? Let me be fair. At least those distinguished Members of Parliament took a little time to change their minds, unlike the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister, who, as we have heard during the debate, suggested right in the middle of the election campaign that, far from fixed-term Parliaments, when a new Prime Minister took office there should be legislation insisting on a fresh general election within six months. I ask what has made him change his mind.

On this issue, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and, in my view, our Constitution Committee, got it right. The noble Lord talked about the biorhythms of our national politics. I think I understood what he meant, even if the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did not. He said that five years does not capture it, and he seems to have got that precisely right. Our Constitution Committee dealt very thoroughly with this issue at paragraphs 62 and 63 of its report, from which I shall quote:

“Whilst acknowledging the case made by the Deputy Prime Minister for a five year term, nonetheless the majority of the Committee consider that a four year term should be adopted for any fixed-term Parliamentary arrangement at Westminster. In the view of the majority, the shift from a five year maximum to a five year norm would be inconsistent with the Government’s stated aim of making the legislature more accountable, inconsistent with existing constitutional practice and inconsistent with the practice of the devolved institutions and the clear majority of international legislatures”.

I say to that: game, set and match. The response so far to the Constitution Committee report is, by any test, very weak. To set out as part of that response a number of countries that have a five-year maximum is hardly the point.

My final point—and I am sorry that I have gone on for so long—is that many of the problems could have been solved if the Government had not rushed this legislation. It is such an obvious point and it has been made by many noble Lords, but it is worth repeating. At least, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, with the AV Bill, whatever we may have thought of it, the importance of 5 May—at least to the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition—gave some excuse and reason for rushing that legislation. In this Bill, what is the hurry? What is the rush? What is the excuse for having no consultation, no pre-legislative scrutiny, no Green or White Papers?

I hope that the noble and learned Lord will spend a little time explaining why it is necessary for this Bill to go through Parliament without any outside consultation. We are told that when the next piece of constitutional legislation comes along—the Lords reform Bill—there will be pre-legislative scrutiny and the full works will be brought out, and quite right, too, but if for that, why not for this? I could mention the large number of noble Lords who have raised this point in one way or another during the debate.

In Chapter 5 of its report, our Constitution Committee absolutely slaughtered, if I may use the expression, the Government’s arguments for this legislation. Of course, it did so in parliamentary language and absolutely appropriately. If noble Lords think I am being high minded about this, I am not. I was the Minister who received our Constitution Committee’s report on the CRaG Bill, and only that Bill got a worse press than this one from our very much respected Constitution Committee, so I sympathise with the noble and learned Lord. I know what it is like after such a Second Reading when the whole world—apart, of course, from the Liberal Democrats—has been against you. I know what it is like, but the Constitution Committee has been absolutely clear and I do not want to allow the agony to continue by quoting from the report. The Minister and others on the Front Bench know exactly what it says.

I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will agree that our Select Committee criticised the Bill in a powerful and fundamental way. It did not believe, first of all, that the case for fixed-term Parliaments had been made. It did not believe that the case for five years rather than four had been made, and it severely criticised the Government for not taking time to consult and think more about the Bill. It is a pretty comprehensive attack, and the response, which I know the House was grateful to receive before Second Reading, is laughable. The letter from the Minister was well meant, but it was making the very best of a pretty bad job.

I end by asking the Minister what the Government’s serious answers are to the criticisms made by the Select Committee and many noble Lords around the House today. Why the urgency for the Bill? Surely what should happen now is that the Government should take the Bill away, consult on it and come back with a proper and suitable Bill for our consideration. Surely our constitution is vital enough not to be the plaything of temporary politicians who are just a little too eager to get power and much, much too eager to keep it.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

This is a Bill of 300 pages—and I do not apologise for repeating this—which plans to change the constitution of our country. I hope the noble Lord is not arguing that to spend five days—I am speaking from memory now, but I am pretty certain that I am right—on the Committee stage in the House of Commons and two days on Report is an inordinate or generous amount of time. I hope he is not suggesting in any way, shape or form, that the time that we have spent in this House on the scrutiny of crucial groups of amendments is any more than they properly deserve. If he does think that, I would appeal to him to let us know which group of amendments should not have been discussed or were addressing anything other than very serious matters about our constitution. He gives the impression that he is very irritated—perhaps I am wrong, perhaps we are over-sensitive on this side—at every criticism of the Bill, and at any suggestion for any amendment. If that is the way he responds, I suggest he talks to his noble friend Lord Strathclyde, who has the capacity most of the time, at the other end of the scale, for making us think that what we are saying is important—what he privately thinks I do not have the faintest idea but I will give him the credit for giving that appearance—and at the same time being amused, not being tetchy and not being irritable. We could have moved on a great deal more quickly with this amendment. The noble Lord has wasted time.

While I am on my feet, the next amendments after mine are six government amendments. I hope that the noble Lord will not do anything other than a proper courtesy to the House in explaining these amendments in proper detail. I absolutely assure him that neither I nor any of my colleagues, and I suspect any on his side of the House, will accuse him of time-wasting.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I am surprised that my little amendment has developed into the excitement that we have enjoyed in Committee for the past few minutes. I have one serious point to make. I ask the Minister to reconsider his attack—maybe he did not mean the words, I do not know—on a particular individual at the other end who is a colleague of mine in the opposition justice team. It is an unwarranted attack on an individual. If the noble Lord wants to attack tactics, that is fine, but do not attack an individual, a Member of Parliament, for doing what most of us would consider to be his duty—and indeed what the noble Lord did so well when he was sitting on the Opposition Benches just a few months ago. Before I withdraw the amendment, I ask the Minister to consider—

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Grocott

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

I agree absolutely with my noble friend, and I think that my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath does, too. His son, as I understand it, has just started a course at the University of Hull.

[Lord Grocott]

That is very wise. I bet that he comes out of his course sensible on Lords reform.