Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I am tempted to talk about the word “consensus”. I said on day one of the Committee that New Zealand had a three-year term of Parliament. When the cut in the number of UK seats was devised as a consensus between the two parts of the coalition, I think that one lot wanted to get rid of 60 seats and the other wanted 100 seats, so they went for a compromise of 50. On the basis of that, I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, that perhaps there could be a compromise here but it could be three years rather than four or five.

I turn more seriously to the question of four years. As the noble and learned Lord has reminded us, the Minister acknowledged at Second Reading that this was a judgment and there was no absolutely right or wrong answer. I feel that the Government have made the wrong judgment in going for five years rather than four.

There is a lot to quote from earlier debates. I have chosen the quote from Herbert Asquith that is in the report, partly because it was exactly 100 years and one month ago today when he said that we should be desirous of a House of Commons that is,

“always either fresh from the polls which gave it authority, or—and this is an equally effective check upon acting in defiance of the popular will—it is looking forward to the polls at which it will have to render an account of its stewardship”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/2/1911; col. 1749.]

More recently, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said on 1 March:

“as the election comes up accountability is a very, very strong thing indeed”.—[Official Report, 1/3/11; col. 1045.]

For any MP, he went on to say, an election is very effective for accountability.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who has already been quoted, claimed that the Government’s ambitious programme would transfer power away from Parliament and empower people. So we have to ask why the Government want to diminish accountability by extending the life of the other place from four years to five. It cannot be about increasing accountability. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has suggested, to think about two periods of five years—that is, 10 years —is what makes me think that the figure of five is wrong. Ten years seems to be too long. Someone just short of their 18th birthday might have to wait until they were 23 to vote, and they would be 28 before they could vote again. The period from 18 to 28 is the whole of the setting down of one’s life, but the Government are suggesting having only one vote during that time.

Similarly, imagine a Government with a small majority or indeed no overall control. It would be extremely hard to run the country like that, as I know, but the Government would be denied the right to go for a working majority, somewhat dreading every death or resignation and the resultant by-election—or maybe hoping for them so that they could then engineer a defeat on a confidence vote. Leaving it that way to call an election could mean that it would happen at the very worst of times: in the middle of a freezing winter, during school holidays, in a financial crisis or even at a time of national mourning, to say nothing of major international events or indeed the convenience of Her Majesty. Some of those questions are about the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, but they are far more likely to arise and be more acute with an over-lengthy five-year Parliament.

The question is particularly pertinent for a coalition. A coalition is new to the electorate and therefore needs a vote sooner on its performance than five years. Also, because its manifesto was never put to the electorate or endorsed at a general election, it seems right that it should not be run for a full five years. Although in general four years is right, it is even more acute either for a Government with a small majority or indeed for a new coalition that four years down the line rather than five is the right time to involve the electorate in whether they wish that Government to continue.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the length of the period between elections in normal times. If it is agreed that five years will be written into legislation, over a period of 20 years the electorate will be denied an opportunity to go to the polls to decide what form the Government will take and which Government will be returned. We had an opportunity last week to hear the Minister on this matter. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was good enough to talk about it. He said that the present system gave awesome power to the Prime Minister of the day. However, what seems to have happened in the room that was talked about in the story from the autobiography of Mr Laws is that awesome power was given to the people around that table. It strikes me that many of the people around that table, who may be very good at economics and other matters, were not experienced parliamentarians. If they had been experienced parliamentarians, they would have said what I am saying today: four years is far better than five.

I ask the Minister to consider four years for the sake of the House and how it operates. I know what he said last week, when we had a warm-up and were able to hear some of his thinking. That is good; we could then think about what he had to say and come back, as we have today. I think the Minister said that his case was that in the fifth year Members of Parliament decide that they want to be in their constituencies. That is not because they are lazy—far from it. They want to work on the hustings; they know an election is coming up and want to be in their constituency. The Minister’s case was that they would do that in the fourth year. However, they would not do that because the Government would not run out of legislation in the fourth year. Therefore, if Members of Parliament missed three-line Whips, it would be duly noted in their constituency. Constituents would say, “Why was he or she here on a Tuesday, missing a three-line Whip?”. That is an incentive to keep Members of Parliament here in the fourth year, rather than in the fifth.

I bolster the case about Governments running out of legislation in the fifth year. The House of Commons Library tells me that in 2009-10 Session, there was not one vote taken on the Floor of the House of Commons on a Thursday. They had topical debates on a Thursday. Some were on very important matters but they were debates. On Thursdays we turned the House of Commons into a debating society, which meant there was no record of whether anyone turned up to represent their constituents. I reiterate what I said the other week. Tam Dalyell, an excellent parliamentarian, told me as a young MP, “Michael, if they want you, tell them you will be available on a Saturday or a Friday night. Don’t take the sleeper up to Glasgow and then get back down for the vote. Tell them that your job is to be in the House of Commons”. However, the Executive of the House of Commons at that time were pleased to have topical debates with no votes so that everyone who wanted to could get away, which meant that more power was put into the hands of the Executive. That is contrary to what the Liberals have said on the Floor of the House of Commons and, indeed, here. They have said, “We don’t want the Executive to get more power”.

Last week the Minister said what fantastic power we were giving to the Prime Minister by enabling him or her to call an election on a date of their choosing, when the polls looked good. The coalition comprises two parties that fought like cats and dogs in the House of Commons—I had to hold their jackets at times—because their policies were so different. However, the leaders of those parties said: “We are getting together to sort out the financial problems of this nation; that’s why we are together, but here’s the wee deal—that we get a five-year Parliament”. There are people with more knowledge of political history than I but I put it to the Committee that Ted Heath might have had the power to go to the country that the Minister talks about, but it did not work for him. Ted Heath said: “It’s me or the miners”, but the country did not re-elect him. He did not serve his full term. Therefore, the great power that he had did not work in his favour; nor did it work in Harold Wilson’s favour in 1970. I remember hearing as a young canvasser that Labour would win again, and the polls all said that. Harold Wilson was perceived as the winner, but during the 1970 election word came through that he would lose, and he did. The same happened with Jim Callaghan. Had Jim Callaghan gone to the country before the great winter of discontent, perhaps he would have won—who knows? The Prime Minister may have awesome power but it has been shown that that power does not always work in his favour.

The noble and gallant Lord spoke about disgruntled Ministers. I suggest that there will be a stack of disgruntled former Ministers. I can hear them now saying, when they were appointed, “Tony said I am the only one who can do this job”. Then they go on to Sky TV—the lovely thing about Sky TV is that if you cannot sleep in the middle of the night, you go on to Sky TV—and the same Minister says, “What a wonderful Prime Minister we have”. I do not know whether it was reported that one Minister said: “I would jump under a bus for the Prime Minister”. I would not jump under a bus for anybody. I do not know whether it was a moving bus or a stationary bus but it shows how much that Minister loved the Prime Minister. Then there is a reshuffle because the Prime Minister has a difficulty; he has to get fresh blood in because the Back-Benchers are saying, “They’ve had their turn at being Ministers; we want to be Ministers now”.

I do not want to mention names but it has been reported that the gentleman who wrote the book might get back into government. I say good luck and three cheers to him. However, there are too many Ministers on the Front Bench so somebody must fall off the end. The logic of that gentleman getting back into government is that someone else will lose their job and become a disgruntled former Minister. The lovely thing about that is that the same people, when they lose their jobs, do not say any more that the Prime Minister is a great person. They sidle up to you in the tea room and say, “He’s a rotter. He’s a bounder”. That gave me an opportunity to say, “But you were not saying that about him two years ago”. The media then make mischief because they have a pool of individuals who are willing to criticise the Government.

That then leads me to consider the people who matter—the electorate. They turn on their televisions, as do the politicians, and they say, “What is going on here? They are all fighting like cats and dogs”. They then think of the old saying in the Bible that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and they say to themselves, “We elected these people to be unified. They promised us unity and now they are fighting with one another”. That will happen in the fifth year. For the sake of running the House properly, four years is far better than this fixed five years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am grateful for that clarification because I had interpreted his amendment as leaving 7 May 2015 to stand and that thereafter there would be four years. I am grateful to hear the noble and learned Lord say that that was not the intention, because that was going to be the answer that I gave to my noble friend Lord Cormack. I accept that it may well be an error in the drafting.

The point that I would make is that this Parliament was elected for a maximum of five years, so in moving to a fixed-term Parliament regime we are embodying that in the Bill—and then thereafter also to have five years. That is the point that I make to the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Of course it is right and it goes without saying that no Parliament can bind its successor. The noble Lord and others say that there is no need for this legislation, but what we are seeking to do is to have fixed-term Parliaments on into the future. Other Parliaments can repeal that, but obviously it would take primary legislation to repeal a system of fixed-term Parliaments. I would very much hope that, having established the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, in the same way as we have fixed terms for devolved Assemblies, for local government and for the European Parliament, fixed terms would become the norm.

I take the point made by my noble friends Lord Marks and Lord Rennard with regard to pre-legislative scrutiny. I have been at the receiving end of many complaints about the lack of such scrutiny. There is an issue about the first year of a Government, because when they come into office they want to get on and start dealing with things. One can readily imagine the criticism that would come from the Opposition if a Government were not doing anything. However, there has been a move over the years to having more pre-legislative scrutiny, which has the effect of increasing the workload on both Houses. It is not fanciful to imagine that, following the election in 2015, a Government of whatever colour will not be able to commence their first Session of legislation with more substantive Bills until there has been a considerable amount of pre-legislative scrutiny. So we are talking about the beginning of 2016 as the time when some key pieces of legislation are introduced, having properly been looked at beforehand.

The final year, whether the term is four years or five years, is always going to be one when those seeking re-election look to their constituencies. That would reduce by some way the effective time for legislation by a Government. My noble friend Lord Norton made the point in one of our debates on the first day in Committee that Governments might run out of steam in the fifth year. Allowing for pre-legislative scrutiny and knowing that there will be five years allows for the legislative programme to be planned more effectively. The fifth year, particularly if it is a full year, not one starting at the end of November with a wash-up in the middle of March, would then be used much more effectively.

I defer to the huge experience of the noble Lord, Lord Martin, as he was Speaker of the other place and has an understanding of the parliamentary process. However, the final year, be it the fifth or the fourth year, would inevitably be one when the shadow of the coming election loomed. I also point out that my understanding is—although I may be corrected—that now Thursday debates in the other place are very often chosen by a Back-Bench Committee and that the Government have given power to the Back-Bench Committee to determine the subject matter for debate. I would be interested to know how many Divisions there have been on Thursdays in the first Session of a Parliament, as the noble Lord made the point about how few there were in the fifth Session. That is another measure that this Government have taken to put more power in the hands of Parliament rather than the Executive.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I cannot speak for what is going on in the other place at the moment. However, if my memory serves me correctly, the Minister followed Jo Grimond into the House of Commons in 1983, so he will appreciate as a former Scottish Member that on a Thursday there were votes more often than not, because we had to take the sleeper home. The other thing is that the Minister has had more experience of four-year Parliaments than five-year ones. In the last Session of a five-year Parliament, there were no votes whatever on the Floor of the House of Commons on a Thursday. That is what happened in the last Session of Parliament before the general election—there were no votes at all. The Minister has never had the experience of when that was the case.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I agree that it was never my experience. One thing that I am glad that I do not have responsibility for is how Parliament under the last Government was arranged in its final year. The point that I was making was that I believe that, be the term four or five years, the final year will be taken forward under the looming election. If one goes to four years and one has pre-legislative scrutiny, that cuts down the effective time for the Government to introduce their measures, let alone for their measures to be judged.