Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if we are to have a fixed-term Parliament, and I believe that we should not, we will do less damage if we fix it at four years rather than at five. I rather agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and with my noble friend Lord Wills that there is little advantage to be gained when we are considering how to reform our own constitution, which has grown out of our distinctive political and constitutional tradition, in looking over the way to see how such matters are organised in other countries. I do not think that when de Tocqueville engaged in such an exercise he was intellectually desperate; it was quite a fruitful exercise. It is worth noting that there is no advanced country with which we can sensibly be compared that fixes the terms of its Parliament for as long a period as five years. France has a fixed term of five years, but it has presidential government; Italy has a fixed term of five years, but Italy is a byword for governmental instability; Malta and Luxembourg have fixed five-year terms, but we cannot sensibly compare ourselves to them. I do not think that there is an advanced democracy abroad which sets the term of its Parliament at five years which should encourage us. If we look inwards at our own affairs, we should remind ourselves that the terms of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly are set at four years. It is therefore incumbent upon the Government to explain why they have taken such an eccentric view. It is all the more so because setting the term at five years, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, said, seems to be at odds with the principles that the Liberal Democrats have professed.

If we fix the term of Parliament, for whatever duration, we insulate Members of Parliament and, significantly, Ministers from public opinion. The longer the term, the worse that effect; the shorter the term, the more accountability and democratic engagement are brought into play. In the light of all the professions that the Deputy Prime Minister has made about the whole thrust of the constitutional reforms being brought forward by the coalition Government being to improve accountability and democratic engagement, it seems very odd that they should have decided on five years rather than four. It was Mr Mark Harper, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, when he was giving evidence to your Lordships Select Committee on the Constitution, who used the phrase, “it is an issue of judgment”. It should not perhaps surprise us very much that the judgment that the Government took was that which best suited the political interest of the coalition parties. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will be able to persuade us that the Government have some better reason.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I decided to intervene briefly in this debate because I felt that the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord Armstrong at Second Reading had not been given voice and because he was not in his place. He now is in his place and I think that he could put them a lot better than I can. They have been referred to, but I should like to reinforce them.

Like other noble Lords, I do not like this Bill. It is an unnecessary Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, if the Government had wanted to commit themselves to a five-year Parliament, they could have done that under the old legislation. For that reason, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, this is not a Bill that binds the present Government so much as it does future Governments. There has been a lot of speculation in the debate about the Government’s motives for what they have done. I do not want to enter into that, because I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that what this House should do is decide on principle what is better for the country. On that issue, I come down in favour of the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Armstrong at Second Reading. I do so for a reason which I am sure will be dismissed as a Sir Humphrey-esque argument, as a bureaucrat’s argument, but I am not ashamed of that. Those of us who have seen government from the inside—the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, made this point, rather unexpectedly from my point of view, but from a political perspective—have reason to put to the House that too frequent elections are not good for the government of the country. Terrible things are done in the lead-up to a general election. Decisions are put off or are made in budgets which are designed to attract voters and are not in the interests of the country. For example, it will be in your Lordships’ memory that the Personal Care at Home Bill, which was introduced by the previous Government before the general election, was a blatant piece of electioneering. I made the point then that, in the economic conditions of the country, it was irresponsible to the highest degree. So to have elections more often than we need to have is not in the best interests of government.

Some people may say that I am against democracy, but that would be unfair. Of course there have to be elections. However, if there is a choice between every four years or five years, I would argue in favour of a five-year term.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Can the noble Lord comment on the point that all the experts who gave evidence, both in the House of Lords committee and in the House of Commons, came down in favour of four years? These were experts on our constitution, both in law and in practice.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

I should like to comment on that because the experts were, for the most part, either politicians or distinguished academics; they were not people who had seen government from the inside. That is why I am anxious to express this alternative point of view.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

First, a number of the politicians had been Ministers. Does the noble Lord regard that as government from the inside—or were they kept from the inside by Sir Humphrey on a regular basis? Secondly, on the basis of the argument he has made, if the noble Lord was given a choice between five and six years, I assume he would choose six years because there would be even less wearisome elections then.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

The noble and learned Lord tempts me.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Please be tempted.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

A balance has to be struck and I would strike it at five years.

On the previous day in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, urged a referendum on the question of the day of the week that polling should take place. In his speech today, he did not urge a referendum on going to a four-year term, which is a greater constitutional change than a change in the day of the week for voting.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, it is precisely the same issue. This is about whether the election should be every four years or five years—I am happy to accept that there may be failings in the wording of the amendment—but the principle is exactly the same: it is to enable the electorate to choose between whether the term of a Parliament should be five years or four years.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

I take it that, if the amendment is passed, the noble Lord would also want a referendum on the question of whether a fixed-term Parliament should be for four or five years.

[Lord Grocott]

Yes.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

Thank you. That makes my point. It has been argued that the merit of a four-year term is that it gives the electorate more ability to hold the Government to account because they can do so more frequently. People like us and experts on government argue about what is good for the people and what the people want. If this was put to a referendum, I doubt whether there would be popular support for four-year rather than five-year terms. Elections are not very popular in this country; people do not like having their television dominated by politics for five or six weeks at a time. One of the arguments in favour of a four-year term is that we are giving the public what we think they ought to want, but I doubt they want it themselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

He might have been, but I would not rely on anybody whose point of principle—this one was adopted for years by the Liberal Democrats—evaporates in the course of one sentence in a negotiation. Say that it is a compromise or a deal done to benefit the country, but do not say that it is a point of principle which switched in the course of negotiations. That is the weakness of the argument, in my respectful submission, that the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, was making.

The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, made an impressive speech. I have never heard statistics more blatantly abused than by him. Perhaps I might draw attention to two particular points. First, he chose his starting point as October 1974 to ignore the February to October 1974 point, as he explained. Secondly, the difficulty with the fact that there was one election where the date was forced upon the Prime Minister by a Motion of no confidence was simply obliterated from his mind completely, so that he focused only on 1978. What he said was accurate in that, obviously, in choosing the date that they have for elections Prime Ministers are motivated by the chances of winning. That is the basic reason why one has a fixed-term Parliament but it does not really assist in determining between four and five years.

The speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, was the most admirable. I say that genuinely, having worked with him. He was the Cabinet Secretary in 1997 when we took power and, having seen the talent of the noble Lord, I can genuinely understand how he would find the elected politicians quite wearisome to start with, particularly when they come into power with no experience of any sort of government. If I were him, I would have the least often elections as possible but, as people have made the point, this debate is just as much about accountability as about stable government. The reason that the Bill is being brought forward—this is the Government’s defence—is because the public are fed up with the politicians and want more accountability and more mechanisms to have control over them. The idea that you do that by extending the length of a Parliament, which is the effect of this, seems, with the greatest respect, to be nonsense. Nothing could be better designed to reduce confidence in government than the disingenuous explanations that have been put forward for the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill in the course of this debate. I will withdraw my amendment, but it will be back. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, since he had a go at me, can he quote one piece of evidence that the public generally want four-year elections?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Can the noble Lord quote one bit of evidence in favour of five years? I suspect that the public have no view on whether it should be four years or five; it is for us to judge.