Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Dobbs and Lord Martin of Springburn

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I support—along with everyone else—Amendment 20 and a new Clause 2. I put on record my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and to Mr Mark Harper, the Minister in charge in the other place. We said in Committee that we would like to meet the Minister, and it was good of him to meet us. I also put on record the great work done by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. In these situations, there is always someone who has to do the phoning, the texting and the e-mails, and it was the noble Lord. I am very grateful to him for keeping me and my colleagues fully informed.

I am glad that the pressure has been taken away from the Speaker. Things have changed, and if the certificate has to be issued by the Speaker—unless we pass this amendment, it will have to be—there is the new dimension. When there was a majority Government, the Speaker would have to look at what the Prime Minister said. If the Prime Minister said, “I consider this vote on the Floor of the House to be a vote of confidence in me”, he would be one person alone that the Speaker would have to look to. However, where we have a coalition, the Speaker would have to look not only to the Prime Minister, but to the Deputy Prime Minister. If the Deputy Prime Minister said that he considered a forthcoming vote to be a vote of no confidence, the Speaker would have to look at that. I am glad that that pressure will be taken away because there is no doubt that things have changed as far as Speakers are concerned.

I had great affection for the late Edward Heath. He used to come and see me up in Speaker’s House. We would have tea and a chat about old times. He used to reminisce about when he was Chief Whip. I thought that I had better ask him about my situation. I said: “The government Chief Whip comes to see me on a weekly basis, as does the opposition Chief Whip, and every second week the Liberal party Chief Whip comes. Did you have that in your day?”. He said: “We didn’t bother the Speaker. The Speaker was too busy for those things”. That indicated that a change took place between the 1960s and today so that Whips now come to see the Speaker on a weekly basis. I can tell noble Lords that they were always moaning. They were never happy. They were like constituents at tenants’ association meetings. You always knew that they would have a complaint. At least, if the government Chief Whip was happy, you could bet your boots that there was something wrong with the opposition Chief Whip. All these pressures have been taken away by what we have before us, and I am very pleased about that.

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation after so many distinguished noble Lords. The first thing I want to do is to thank, like so many other noble Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness for his care, consideration and courtesy in dealing with various issues that I have raised with him. I have been able to support the Bill because of the two great principles of certainty and stability which it enshrines, but there is a third leg of that constitutional stool, which is simplicity, as my noble friend Lord Cormack, pointed out earlier.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, explained, there is a problem with the 14-day cooling-off period. It is in danger of failing those three fundamental principles. Let me briefly take the example of 1977-79, which some of us remember so well. Those years showed the best and worst of our current system. The best was that it allowed sufficient flexibility for the formation of the Lib-Lab pact—before my noble friends begin to swoon in surprise, I emphasise that I do not hold the Lib-Lab pact as the best example of government, or even a good example of government, merely a flexible example.

How flexible our current system was became even clearer after that when the Liberals withdrew and everyone from Bill Brewer to Uncle Tom Cobbleigh got in on the act. That was the worst of the current system. Deals were done—not just with the Liberal Party, but with Ulster Unionists, Scottish nationalists, Welsh nationalists and even Irish republicans. Goodness’ knows what would have happened if UKIP had been present there. Offers and inducements were made, from extra parliamentary seats to expensive pipelines to promises on devolution—even, I understand, to the occasional odd bottle of Scotch. The only reason why some of us can smile about it is because it was so very long ago.

The country was rescued from that misery by a vote of no confidence. Every man and woman in the other place that night understood precisely what that vote entailed. If the Government lost, they would fall. The stakes were extraordinarily high: so high that some Members clambered from their sick beds to get into ambulances and make that long haul to New Palace Yard—simply in order to be nodded through. A few, I believe, put their lives on the line simply in order to do that duty. How could we countenance a system which, after such an effort and such a sacrifice, responded by saying, “Thank you, but now you have another 14 days to cool off, to change your mind”? Fourteen days of dodgy deals, 14 days of pipelines and parliamentary fixes, 14 days to deny the electorate their right to decide—and every bit of it enshrined in law. Far from the Prime Minister giving up his powers to Parliament—