Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Dobbs and Lord Norton of Louth

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, the convention is that if the Government lose a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister has the option of either requesting a Dissolution or resigning. Callaghan did not have to go to the palace: he could have chosen to resign.

[Lord Dobbs]

Yes, indeed. I shall try to deal with that issue in a second.

Far from the Prime Minister giving up his powers to Parliament and the people in these provisions, he would be handing them over to party bosses operating in back rooms. I have been there and I have been one of them, and I doubt if things would become any more fragrant simply because those back rooms are no longer filled with smoke. Let us go back to something like 1979. Imagine the haggling: “No, I won’t vote for you, Jim, because if I help defeat you on this no-confidence Motion, I will be able to squeeze even more out of you tomorrow”.

A no-confidence Motion should be more than simply a hand at poker, with players raising the stakes both before and after the vote. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, I fear that Clause 2 as drafted would allow just that—with the players pleading that haggling is precisely what the law allows, precisely what the law approves of. Fourteen days of it: crisis, what crisis? But that is not what anyone here wants, so I urge my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace to look at this yet again. If he feels he must codify this matter of no-confidence Motions, he should ensure that this part of the Bill is made more clear. I am not against safety valves, not against 14 days in all circumstances. But 14 days should not be so inflexible that it becomes a charter for chaos and an excuse for political fixes. What we do today in good faith must not become an excuse for excess at some future date.