Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Wills and Lord Rennard

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment, primarily because it will give the Government a chance to reconsider a key part of the Bill. The case for a fixed term of four years is not beyond argument, although my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and many other noble Lords have made a good case for it being so. However, I agree with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said at Second Reading: whether a term should be of four or five years is in the end “a question of judgment”. That judgment should be informed by principle. I have struggled hard to find any principle advanced by the Government in favour of the Bill. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, at Second Reading seemed to base the argument primarily on precedent—on what had happened in our recent history, in several countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and so on.

However, there is a principled argument for the Government’s position. It was put forward, for example, from the Cross Benches, by the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Butler, from all their experience of serving the state over many years. It is an argument rooted in the importance of stability for the governance of this country. This is not a negligible argument, but it comes up against the argument that accountability should be paramount. That is a judgment that I support. More importantly, it is a judgment that almost all noble Lords who have so far spoken in these debates have favoured. It is overwhelmingly, as we have heard, the view of all the experts who have given evidence to both Houses of Parliament. The search for an accommodation between the principles of accountability and stability is fundamental to the constitutional arrangements of all modern democracies. The question that still has not been adequately addressed in all the parliamentary scrutiny of this legislation is: who should make the decision about how best to make that accommodation?

Today we have heard the case for greater consultation. Even if the Government did not take the decision in favour of five years quite as casually and self-interestedly as the account given by Mr David Laws MP suggests, it is still a fact that there has been no public consultation on this fundamental issue. This legislation seeks to determine the shape of future Parliaments, yet those most affected by it—the voters of this country—have not yet been asked what they think about the judgment that the Government have made. They should be asked. We have heard a great deal about the views of academic experts and politicians; what about the people we all serve? I am not in favour of referendums in general. I am certainly not in favour of a referendum on this point. However, I am in favour of the Government embarking on one of the many forms of public engagement that already exist—exercises in deliberative democracy and so on. They are available to the Government, who should now take advantage of them.

Listening to all the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, you would think they believed in the greater engagement of the public in policy formation between elections. Here is an opportunity for them to put some substance into all this airy rhetoric. If your Lordships support this amendment, I fear it will not change the Government’s mind on how long a term should be. This Government have shown very little inclination to listen to your Lordships’ House on all their measures of constitutional reform. However, the amendment will at least provide an opportunity for taking a pause. My noble friend Lord Grocott made this case persuasively at the start of this debate.

If the Government can take a pause to consult widely on measures such as NHS reform—profoundly important as they are—surely they can do the same with this important measure of constitutional reform. I hope that your Lordships will give the Government an opportunity to do so.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I set out in Committee three reasons why I felt strongly that a fixed-term Parliament of five years was more appropriate than one of four years. I shall not repeat those arguments at length. However, since I made the first argument there has been even more discussion about the principle of pre-legislative scrutiny, and there has been a considerable demand in this House and elsewhere for more pre-legislative scrutiny. A five-year fixed-term Parliament in many ways incentivises a Government to have more pre-legislative scrutiny than has previously been the case. If a Government feel that they may be in for only four years, and there was a four-year fixed-term Parliament, we would have rather less pre-legislative scrutiny than would happen if they knew they would last for five years.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who said earlier that there is a clear danger that a four-year Parliament would not provide much time in the first year for pre-legislative scrutiny, and we all know that in the last year of almost any Parliament there is perhaps more attention on campaigning than on legislating. This would mean that in a four-year fixed-term Parliament perhaps only two years would be devoted to serious legislative work. Many people believe that in the model of the United States, which has a four-year fixed-term, there are only two years of effective governing and two years of campaigning.

Secondly, I pointed out in Committee—I thought that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wills, would have said something about this—that there should be consistency in the way in which you conduct elections in terms of how you regulate constituency election expenditure. The previous Labour Government brought in rules that kick in four years and seven months after a general election and last for 60 months after the previous general election. In other words, the rules last to control expenditure at constituency level in general elections only for the final six months of a five-year Parliament. As we said in debates a year or two ago, it is not logical to have rules controlling constituency expenditure in that last six months of a five-year Parliament unless there is a five-year fixed-term Parliament.

My third argument relates to our recent debates of great controversy. However, we decided in legislation that reviews of parliamentary constituency boundaries would take place every five years. The principle of revising constituency boundaries to take into account shifting population is recognised by all parties. However, the frequency with which that takes place is the subject of some dispute. Revising constituency boundaries more frequently than every five years would have many disadvantages and would certainly be unpopular in another place. The reviews of constituency boundaries should be synchronised with general elections.

There is, however, an additional argument that points in favour of a five-year fixed term. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are about to begin five-year terms, and this is likely to become the norm for future elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. There is no appetite at all in Scotland and Wales—

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Wills and Lord Rennard

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wills]

Before the noble Lord finishes telling us why he changed his mind, perhaps I may point out that all the considerations in favour of a five-year term that he is now advancing, and the issues that he has brought into play, have been well known for many years—in fact, all the years during which he was in favour of a four-year fixed term. Can he tell us now precisely why he changed his mind?

[Lord Rennard]

The first reason is one about which the noble Lord, Lord Wills, should know a great deal. I pay great tribute to him as a genuine constitutional reformer. He was responsible in the previous Parliament and in the previous Government for changing significantly some of the rules on party political expenditure. Noble Lords opposite shared my concern throughout much of the 13 years and the three Parliaments of the previous Government about the lack of a level playing field in this country in party financing, which gave too much opportunity to extremely wealthy individuals to influence an election, particularly in constituencies, in the immediate run-up to it. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, introduced legislation in the previous Parliament which provided for control of that expenditure after four years and seven months of a Parliament. There would be no controls before that; they would apply only after four years, seven months. I opposed that legislation on the ground that it would work logically only if you had a five-year fixed-term Parliament. Noble Lords opposite had no answer to that point, but decided that four years, seven months was how it should be. So, now, our legislation to regulate party political expenditure is entirely dependent on there being a five-year fixed-term Parliament and on those controls coming in after four years and seven months through to the 60th month of the Parliament, and no other period.