Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is precisely because there have been at least two elections of the kind that the hon. Gentleman draws attention to that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act has not done what it said on the tin. It has failed the Ronseal test. For those who advocated the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in the first place, all sorts of arguments were made about the importance of the predictability of election timing, and, of course, the Bill palpably failed to achieve that in the way that it failed to achieve so much else. What we are doing with this legislation is restoring a tried and tested method by which Prime Ministers can command the confidence not just of this House, but of the country.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Gove]

I am more than happy to give way to my hon. Friend, a distinguished member of the Joint Committee.

[Aaron Bell]

Does the Secretary of State agree that any legislation in this area must work with any parliamentary arithmetic? That was the problem we saw in the previous Parliament and that is what going back to the status quo ante before 2010 will achieve.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our approach to the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of elections before the Fixed-term Parliament Act was robust, successful and effective and ensured that our democracy worked as it should. What we are doing is ensuring that those tried and tested procedures are restored, and in so doing not just fulfilling our manifesto pledge, but—and it was a pleasure to do so—fulfilling the manifesto pledge of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and making sure that democracy in that way is underpinned.

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[Michael Gove]

I think that I would defer to others on fixing the precise date, but I believe that that is so.

[Aaron Bell]

In addition to what is in the Bill, we have to discuss what is not in it: the conventions that we seek to restore and the Dissolution principles published along- side the draft Bill. As my right hon. Friend will know, the Joint Committee considered the conventions, the paramountcy of confidence and all those things quite extensively. From reading our report, what conclusions have the Government reached about the nature of confidence and the circumstances in which calling a general election would not be an appropriate thing for a Prime Minister to do?

[Michael Gove]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a very important point. Alongside the Bill, we have produced a brief statement of Dissolution principles. He is absolutely right. Our broad understanding of Dissolution principles derives from a letter written by Sir Alan “Tommy” Lascelles pseudonymously—I am glad to be able to use that word in the House of Commons—to The Times in the 1950s. He argued that a Dissolution should not be granted if the monarch thought that there were a viable alternative that could command a majority in the House of Commons—or, indeed, if it were a time of economic crisis or peril in which it would be inappropriate for a general election to be called. We think that it is very difficult, as my hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution and others made clear in evidence to the Joint Committee, to provide an exhaustive list of example cases in which it would be inappropriate for a Dissolution to be granted when requested. One thing we would like to do in Committee is have proper consideration of them.

It is important that our constitution always remains flexible and agile. I could conceive of circumstances—immediately after an election defeat, for example, when a Prime Minister is still perhaps clinging on, seeking to form a coalition or a confidence and supply arrangement and failing to do so—when that Prime Minister might seek an immediate other Dissolution shortly afterwards. In such circumstances, I can see that it would not be appropriate for a Dissolution to be granted. As I say, it would be helpful for everyone to take part in the debate to outline the circumstances that they think should guide the operation of the principles.

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[Cat Smith]

If it does not work out in politics, perhaps I have a career as a therapist.

I find it remarkable that Ministers sitting on the Treasury Bench filed through the Lobby 10 years ago to vote for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, as today they will presumably be voting the opposite way.

[Aaron Bell]

The hon. Lady asks who power is being transferred to but, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, it is a transfer to the people.

I enjoyed the hon. Lady’s exchange with the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), but the problem with the 2017 Parliament is that it did not trust the people, which is why we ended up where we did. That is why we had to have the election we eventually had, and it is why we had the result we did. If we just trusted the people, we would all be much better served.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say this is about power and where power lies. Where we probably disagree and diverge is on the definition of where power is moving to and from.

The Bill before us transfers all the power into the hands of one individual, the Prime Minister. The power to call an election currently lies with all 650 Members of this House, who are elected by the people. I would argue that power to the people lies more in keeping the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Of course I disagree with the Act, and I support its repeal, but I disagree with the Government’s replacement.

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[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett). As others have said, it is an absolute pleasure to see the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), in her place. We all welcome her back, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said. The Minister has not really been away, but it is good to have the Smith vs. Smith show back, live in the House of Commons.

This is a very important Bill. It is a constitutional Bill, which means it is not necessarily box office. I do not know how many people are tuned into BBC Parliament at the moment, but I am glad that we are having the debate. We have had a full debate in the best traditions of the House and—praise be—with no time limit either, although I will ensure that my hon. Friends get their space at the end of the debate as well.

It was a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee with so many distinguished Members, five of whom have already spoken in the debate, and some of whom are still in their places. We had some very eminent witnesses, including former Clerks of the House, former Cabinet Secretaries and noble lordships, most of whom also served in this House in their time, who lent so much expertise to the proceedings—not least our Chair, the noble Lord McLoughlin, who was a fellow MP from Staffordshire in his day. I pay tribute to the Clerks of the Committee, who did an absolutely superb job in both arranging the witnesses and getting us all to a report that we could all support, which is incredibly important. When legislating in this area, we should strive to be as bipartisan as possible.

The case for change has been well made by the Government and was made by the Labour party in its manifesto. The 2011 Act, which we are repealing, was indeed a product of its time, as we have discussed. It actually served reasonably well from 2011 to 2015, as it was supposed to do. In the period between 2015 and 2019, however, it clearly showed its flaws. It was a constitutional innovation that did not really survive its first contact with any sort of difficulty, which is perhaps also because of the referendum.

Referendums are also a relatively recent constitutional innovation. When the referendum asked the House to do something that it did not want to do—previous referendums had usually been on things for which the House already had a will, such as giving devolution to Scotland and Wales—and came back with an instruction from the people that the majority of Members of the House did not support, we ended up with the situation that we had in the 2017 to 2019 Parliament, which I and other Members from the 2019 intake watched with horror from home. It was not just us; it was people who were not even interested in politics and did not know what was going on. Norms had broken down, and we need to restore those norms.

As I said when intervening on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during his opening remarks, any constitutional arrangement needs to be equally suitable for any parliamentary arithmetic, and given what we had under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act that was blatantly not the case. I accept that Brexit exacerbated tensions, but those tensions would have been there anyway in any minority Government situation.

I understand that future coalitions may need similar security to what the Liberal Democrats sought in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but I suggest a simple Bill in the future, prohibiting the Prime Minister from requesting—something we said, requesting—a dissolution until a given date. That simple Bill would last only for that Parliament; after that, we could move back to the tried and tested, which is what we are trying to do today.

Conclusion 7 of our report was that a requirement for a super majority in this House cannot be enforced. It has been said sometimes that the constitution of this country is whatever commands a majority of the House of Commons. The only way to enforce a super majority requirement is perhaps through the House of Lords, but the idea that the House of Lords could prevent an election is not credible, or it would ultimately damage the credibility of the House of Lords to such an extent that it would not consider it.

Turning to other recommendations of the Joint Committee, I am pleased the Government have listened to the point about the Prime Minister requesting, not advising. As other hon. Members said, the name change is appropriate. Hopefully, this Bill will be part of our constitutional settlement for decades, perhaps even centuries, to come. The idea that it should have been called the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliament Act is simply not befitting. We have had some constitutional oddities in our time: the reason we have elections every five years is the Septennial Act, which means seven years. We can move on. This is the right title—the dissolution and summoning of Parliament is precisely what the Bill does.

The point about the 25 working day election period was well expounded by my right hon. Friends the Members for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), for Basingstoke and for Bexleyheath and Crayford. We need to find a way to reduce that. We need to press the Electoral Commission further; it has been very resistant, both in its evidence to our Committee and in answers given to questions in this House. With technology, surely it should not be insurmountable to find a way to reduce the period in which Parliament is absent and to reduce the overlong campaign, which does not serve us or our constituents.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the principle ought to be that the electoral timetable should be fixed at the convenience of the public and the participants in the election, not the Electoral Commission?

[Aaron Bell]

I could not put it any better than that; my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I understand the desire to make sure things are done properly, but there has to be a way to do things more quickly. We have to embrace technology, which ought to make things more possible rather than more difficult—putting in extra time for this, that and the other, for coming from overseas or to set up people’s proxy vote. We must be able to do things far more quickly than we have done in the past.

On our recommendations, the Government need to look at—we all ought to, actually, because this is probably a conventional point—the period after the election. In many cases, we have been lucky that we have been able to form Governments quickly, but that is not necessarily always the case. We need to look at the conventions around that. In fact, turning to conclusions 31 to 33, by definition we are not meant to vote on those conventions because they are conventions, but, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, a discussion in Committee of the whole House may help to establish conventions.

It was our Committee’s opinion that the original dissolution principles document was inadequate. We proposed a 20-point list of conventions relating not just to dissolution but to the period of time in which Parliament is dissolved and the calling and forming of Governments. I hope that we can all consider that in Committee and come to a common understanding, because honourable behaviour and common understanding is the way that we need to proceed in these matters.

Overall, the Bill does strengthen the democratic process by restoring the overriding principle that the Government should have the confidence of the House of Commons. That was the norm that was distorted over and again in 2019. We have to reaffirm that; it is fundamental to the operation of Parliament. Once again, parliamentary votes can be designated as matters of confidence. That was the essential problem: it was possible for a number of Members to vote against the Government’s absolute flagship policy one day and the next day to vote that they had confidence in the Government. That is no Government at all. We need to find a way for things to function so that there has to be confidence in the Government’s flagship policies, Budget and Queen’s Speech; otherwise, they are no longer the Government. That is how things need to proceed in this place.

The Bill would also provide greater legal constitutional and political certainty around the processes for dissolving Parliament and holding a general election, with the flexibility we need for exceptional circumstances. The one thing that contributed to the general sense of chaos that I saw watching from home, and I know others did, was the lack of certainty about how things should be operating. In particular, nobody seemed to know what was supposed to happen in that 14-day lacuna: whether the Prime Minister was supposed to resign on day 1 or day 14; whether the Leader of the Opposition would become the Prime Minister, even if they could not command a majority. It was a ridiculous position for our country to have got into, and we will get ourselves out of that by passing this Bill.

On clause 3, the ouster clause, I accept that opinions differ and they differed in the Committee, but I certainly have no problem putting into statute the very clear precedent that the exercise of prerogative powers relating to dissolution is non-justiciable and cannot be reviewed by the courts. That is a long-standing and generally accepted convention. Personally, I would of course take a dim view of a court seeking to intervene in the timing of an election. There is nothing more inherently political than an election and involving the courts—what is called “lawfare”—in the timing of an election would be incredibly uncomfortable for the public, everyone in the political sphere and, I think, the courts as well. How could the image of a Supreme Court trying to override the wishes of a Prime Minister, as enacted by the sovereign, be tolerable to the public? I cannot see any circumstance where that is better than having the election or, potentially, the sovereign refusing to dissolve Parliament.

On that point, we heard repeatedly that the sovereign would not refuse. If the sovereign was going to refuse, it would be communicated to the Prime Minister beforehand that the sovereign would refuse, so the request would never be made. That is how our unwritten constitution should work: through those sorts of understandings. That is what we need to get back to.

The ultimate arbiter of all these matters should be the voters or, in exceptional circumstances, the sovereign. If they are unhappy with how a Government have behaved with the calling of an election or the timing of an election, it is in their hands to determine the consequences for that Government and what the electoral punishment should be. I take issue with the idea we have heard a few times today that the Bill is about putting power in the hands of the Government. It takes power away from Parliament, certainly, but it vests that power in the public and the electorate, and that is where power should truly lie.