Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I do not intend to take up much time of the House. Our position remains the same. We support the amendment. It still seems to us to be a practical and sensible proposal that is generous to the Government and gives them their five-year term of this Parliament but takes account of the substantial concern and suspicion that there is about the Bill across both Houses of Parliament. Noble Lords may have seen that, last week in the House of Commons, at least seven Conservative Members of Parliament voted against the Government on this issue.

What is Her Majesty's Government's argument? Put by a junior Minister at the Cabinet Office, the honourable Mr Harper, last week, it is effectively that the Cross-Bench amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is unconstitutional. Anyone reading Mr Harper's speech from last week and looking at the ridiculous amendment proposed by the Government would be struck by the frankly patronising, even insulting, manner in which he addresses the Cross-Bench amendment. It is perhaps a little cheeky for a junior Minister to attempt to patronise two ex-Cabinet Secretaries, a very distinguished ex-Speaker of the House of Commons and one of our leading constitutional legal experts, but that is what he chose to do. That insult, or patronisation, pales into insignificance compared with the pure chutzpah in this Government protesting about the way in which constitutional change takes place. If the right reverend Prelate will forgive me, it is a bit like Satan preaching against sin.

Where, both in this Bill and in its now notorious predecessor, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011—whose absurd consequences we can all see this week, and the Liberal Democrat Benches more than most—was there, first, any pre-legislative scrutiny? Secondly, where was there any draft legislation? Thirdly, where was there any suggestion in the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the last election of supporting fixed-term Parliaments? Indeed, I recall—and I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—the Prime Minister himself, before the election, insisting that there must be a general election whenever a new Prime Minister took office. That is the complete opposite of what is proposed in this Bill. Where is there the search for consensus? Where, in short, is there any of that care, caution and concern for our past, present and future which should always be part of constitutional change? The answer of course is that there was none, and our country will pay the price for such hurried and careless law-making.

The Government criticise the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, saying that the sunset clause is not suitable in a constitutional Bill, forgetting, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, reminded us a few minutes ago, that, when in opposition, both parties demanded—quite rightly, in many cases—sunset clauses in constitutional matters affecting citizens’ civil liberties. In short, there is absolutely nothing unconstitutional.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

Will the noble Lord help me on this? Does he agree that this sunset clause is not just a sunset clause but also a sunrise clause, in the sense that the matter can be brought back in any subsequent Parliament, for the duration of that Parliament alone, so that effectively the difference between this clause and other sunset clauses—that is, the clauses proposed by the amendment—is to leave the country and the electorate in a state of permanent uncertainty, and to deprive the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, as it would be, of any force whatever to that effect?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Bach and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, accepting, as I suspect we all do, that this is a matter of judgment, I suggest to the Committee that the judgment referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, is best made by a serious assessment of the balance between, on the one hand, the likelihood—although not the certainty under the provisions of the Bill—of less frequent elections and, on the other, the stability that a five-year Parliament offers and the opportunity for the electorate to bring a greater maturity of judgment because of the experience that they have of the Parliament and the Government after five years rather than four years. In making that judgment I suggest that the historical precedents since the war are of limited assistance, precisely because we have not had fixed-term Parliaments.

One complaint of those who argue for four years is that the Bill substitutes five years for a maximum of five years and a norm of four years. That is the effect of the Bill, but the complaint ignores the fact that the effect in practice of the 1911 Act has been that, where a Government have had a working majority, the Parliament has lasted five years if the Prime Minister has believed that he or she will lose, which means that he or she has stayed for the full term. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord Martin, argued that the fifth year tends to be a lame-duck year—an ineffective year. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said much the same thing. It is an ineffective year because, it is said, in the case of five-year Parliaments, the Government is tired and expects to lose. However, you cannot deduce from that that, where everyone knows that the next election is fixed for the end of the five years, there will be similar exhaustion.

In the past, when a Prime Minister has expected to win, he or she has gone after four years. That analysis is borne out by the elections of 1964, 1979, 1997 and 2010. In each of those years, the election was held at the end of five years and the Government went on to lose. An exception is the election of 1992, when the Government expected to lose and were rather surprised to win. The only other exception to that analysis, although it is not a real exception, is the election of February 1974, which noble Lords will know was held for special reasons. However, that election gives us a useful analysis of whether it is true to say that there would have been four fewer elections or whether you can count the elections and say that there would have been that many fewer. I suggest that under the provisions of this Bill it is highly likely that there would in any case have been an election in 1974 because when the then Prime Minister said, “I want an election to determine the issue of who governs the country, the Government or the miners”, the then Opposition to Mr Heath would have accepted the challenge and voted for an election, so that Parliament would have been dissolved on a two-thirds majority basis. It is not possible to say how many fewer elections there might have been. The Bill makes the basis for Dissolution more logical and removes what we say is the unfairness of allowing the Prime Minister sole charge of when there is an election.

As we know, the average length of Parliaments since the war has been three years and 10 months. I suggest that the calculation of that average term is of no assistance. The principal point against the relevance of such an average is that it takes into account all those early elections called by the Prime Minister in the exercise of precisely the power that the Bill is designed to remove. Secondly, it takes into account the very early elections of 1951, 1966 and October 1974. In that sense, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is right to say that it leaves out the ducks, but those ducks are important to leave out because, in the calculation of a sensible term for a Parliament with a working majority, those Parliaments where the Government had no working majority and had to go to the country early are of no assistance.

[Lord Bach]

I am interested in the noble Lord’s arguments. He knows that his party’s policy for many years was, honourably, that there should be fixed terms for four years. Did he support that policy? If not, was he always a five-year man? If he did support that policy, when was it that he changed his mind to five years? Was it, by any chance, around the time that the coalition was formed?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

That is a perfectly fair question, because it is well known that it was Liberal Democrat policy to go for four-year fixed terms. However, it is quite clear that the formation of the coalition caused people to consider their policy and the arguments one way or the other. The coalition has put forward a programme for government. It is a considered view—which, I suggest, is no less right because it is a view come to after negotiation, the negotiations to which Mr Laws refers in the book that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is now reading—that that period gives more stable government. The question for this House is, in the light of what has happened, to consider whether five years is better than four. The history of the Liberal Democrat policy on the point does not assist us. We have to bring a new and balanced judgment to the question now before Parliament.