Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Lord Norton of Louth

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

That may be a bit excessive, but then Belgium has some rather unique problems—which, so far, have not happened here—in terms of racial, linguistic and ethnic division. I take my noble friend’s point and I hope that he will take mine that most European countries do not expect to have the pantechnicons arriving on election day or the day afterwards. They have got used to it; why cannot we?

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree. He is right about the international position; we are extremely unusual in the period of transition from Government to Government. I shall come back to that on a later amendment.

The problem with Amendment 37—I shall speak also to Amendment 34—is the premise that there should be a delay for a set period following the election. It may be for only five days rather than 14, but there is a delay, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, seeks to make provision for an election to follow in the immediate wake of the loss of a vote of no confidence. Given a choice between the two, I incline to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.

However, the problem that I have with his amendment is that the loss of a vote of no confidence triggers an election as the only option. I believe that that should be, as now, one option rather than the only option. I shall come back to that issue in later amendments. Given the choice between the two I incline towards the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth. However, we still need a provision for Prime Ministers to be able to tender their resignation rather than automatically request that Parliament be dissolved.