Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Alex Norris Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The Lascelles principles are something we still respect. One of the fundamental tenets of Sir Alan Lascelles’ letter was the fact that we wished to avoid any suggestion that the sovereign be involved in politics.

The amendment, as I was saying, is silent on the issue of the negative consequences. The privilege to request that the sovereign exercise the Dissolution prerogative is an executive function that is enjoyed by virtue of the ability to command the confidence of the Commons.

We must also question how the amendment would work in practice. For example, how would the parliamentary process be sequenced and when would it apply? Would the Prime Minister be required to confirm the support of the House only when they intend to request that Parliament be dissolved before the maximum five-year term, or would it apply following a loss of confidence? There are myriad questions that the amendment would leave unanswered; as we can see, it adds undesired complexity to what is a simple proposition—a return to the status quo ante.

The Bill intends to return us to that status quo, reviving the prerogative powers for the Dissolution and the calling of Parliament and preserving the long-standing position on the non-justiciability of those powers. The amendment would undermine the entire rationale for the Bill. If it is amended as proposed, we would be entering into precisely the kind of ill-thought-through constitutional innovation that we are seeking to repeal.

The simplest and most effective route is to make express provision to revive the prerogative powers for the Dissolution and calling of Parliament, returning our country to tried and tested constitutional arrangements offering certainty around the calling of elections. The prerogative power to dissolve Parliament is the ultimate expression of humility on the part of the Executive, placing the future and power into the hands of the people.

Finally, with all due respect for the undoubted expertise and value of the House of Lords, I suggest it is not appropriate for the revising Chamber to ask the elected House to revisit questions, not least when they relate to the process and role of this House, on which this House has already definitively decided. I thank their lordships, but I hope that they will now take note of this House’s clear view. Therefore, I would welcome this House’s sending a clear signal and I urge it to vote against the amendment.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak for the Opposition in this debate.

I listened very carefully to the case that the Minister made for his motion to remove Lords amendment 1 to clause 2. I was sad to hear it, and I think we could do better. He is right that Labour, both in our manifesto and in the two years since, has supported the principle of the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which was an ill-thought-out and poorly executed piece of legislation. I gently say, though, given how strongly the Minister stressed that, that it was this Government’s piece of legislation, not ours. He cautions us against novations in this space, but that was actually a lesson for themselves, and it is not quite fair to point it in our direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Does my hon. Friend think there is any possibility that a future Government, or this Government given their past record, might abuse the power to dissolve Parliament in the way that they abused the power to prorogue Parliament during that period through a disgraceful hoodwinking of Her Majesty the Queen?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I strongly believe in the maxim that how you do one thing is how you do everything, and I believe that the same cast of characters will broadly act in the same way at every opportunity. That tends to be, as with all the pieces of legislation that I listed, that the Government see things through a very narrow political prism, and that is what we are seeing today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

How is it an abuse of power and a strengthening of the Executive for the Executive to say, “We want to go to the people and let the people decide whether we should be allowed to continue in government or be chucked out”?

[Alex Norris]

The Lords amendment is a very modest safeguard to that in saying, “At least demonstrate that a majority of the legislature agrees with you.” It is not unreasonable to say that Parliament could be involved in the Dissolution process in the way that noble Lords have said. It is a modest hurdle. All it asks is that the Prime Minister of the day be able to command a majority, and in different scenarios.

I know that the Minister is keen to avoid hypotheticals, but we do have to think about how these powers may apply in future. In a balanced Parliament like the previous one, the amendment might mean that the Government work a little bit more broadly to secure the election. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) referred to the dreadful election of 2019. I would argue that it was the Government between 2017 and 2019 who were dreadful rather than the election itself, being a passive process. Indeed, the Minister characterised it as a zombie Government. Given that he served in that Government, I think he does himself a disservice in characterising himself in that way.

[Dr Lewis]

I do not think it was a dreadful election—it was a brilliant election. What was dreadful was the fact that it was in the power of the Opposition to stop that election happening and to not allow the people to have their say.

[Alex Norris]

I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The idea that it was dreadful that a Government who did not command a majority of this House could not just always get their way—that is how the system is supposed to work, I gently suggest.

Where a Government have a clear working majority, as we have today, the amendment would insure against a capricious Prime Minister—perhaps one losing the confidence of their own Benches in the light of, in a hypothetical, significant issues of judgment or personal character—just going and throwing everything up in the air in their own interest. Indeed, there is the scenario, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, where someone else might be able to form a Government, but the individual who would be most harmed could just call an election without that being explored.

[John Redwood]

The point is this: why should an Opposition, when facing a minority Government who want to resolve things via an election, be able to stop an election? They either have to form a coalition of their majority and govern, which is one option, or allow the public to decide. It was outrageous that the Opposition did not allow the public to have a Government.

[Alex Norris]

I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman, because the reality is that before those parties could even come together to form that possible alternative Government, the Prime Minister could be in the car and on the way to call the election, and that process would be rendered moot. I cannot support that.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Many Members may find it rather difficult to think of a scenario when we would not need to have such a vote, but if other Members have watched “The Crown”, we have seen the example—a very fictitious one—where the scriptwriters wrote the moment when the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was losing the confidence of her parliamentary party and had that fictitious meeting with the Queen. In building legislation that will last, we need to ensure that we have sufficient, adequate checks so that any Prime Minister will not abuse their position. Is the truth of the matter not that we are going back to the status quo ante? Indeed, the existence of the ouster clause that excludes the courts means that the Government are going further than that.

[Alex Norris]

It is definitely fair to say that there are new arrangements. That is why the Minister said the amendment would be inappropriate, but I do not think it would be. By the way, I have not seen “The Crown”; my wife and I are working our way through “Flip or Flop”, and there are 160 episodes of it, so it may take some time. In the scenario that the hon. Lady talks about, we have seen in recent history Prime Ministers who are losing the confidence of their party talking in terms of “Back me or sack me”. The reality is that the Bill, without this minor safeguard, would mean that a “Back me or sack me” moment, rather than it being won as a parliamentary process with a party’s Back Benchers, would instead play out as a party psychodrama with the general electorate. I think that would be a bad thing.

I will finish with three further quick arguments against giving the Government the power they seek, or at least not without this minor fettering suggested by the Lords. First, it comes back to a question of electoral advantage and ensuring that elections are fair. It is an age-old argument, and an issue that has launched a thousand dissertations—it was one of the major reasons for the 2011 Act—but it has become only more salient since then. Over the past 12 years, we have seen increasing restrictions on party and non-party activity, and the Elections Bill will put more in. These provisions are backdated, and that provides a significant advantage for candidates of the current governing party during the short campaign period, but the advantage grows further for parties, as the regulated period for political parties is now 365 days prior to election day. It is a heck of an advantage to know that start. The amendment would not completely get rid of that, but it would even the scales, and that is another good reason to support it.

Secondly—others colleagues have brought this up, and if I stray out of order, I know I will be told off, so I will be very quick—surely the real lesson to take from that 2019 episode is that by including a parliamentary rubber stamp on Dissolution, we remove any risk of dragging the Crown into such a decision. I think all right hon. and hon. Members would seek to avoid that, because it was an unedifying moment.

Hon. Members have mentioned the courts and the justiciability of the decisions. The Lords amendment would settle that for certain because a vote in this House would be a definitive answer. I know that the Government think that the Bill’s ouster clause will resolve all matters relating to the courts, but I say to them that we will see; I do not think it is as definitive as they say.

I urge the House to support the Lords amendment. The Minister has made a passionate exposition of his case. I gently say to Conservative Back Benchers that the Bill is obviously targeted at restricting the activities of the Opposition, but that means them too. I see some mischievous faces, including the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), who is an independent figure. They mean to fetter their own—[Interruption.] The Minister says otherwise, but I gently say to him that the last time that was tested with the Government, which was the first week of September 2019, 21 of your colleagues lost the Whip—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Not of my colleagues.

[Alex Norris]

Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker: 21 of the Minister’s colleagues. Of course, they were rare circumstances, but it has happened again in this Parliament that when the Government face opposition from outside, they seek to shut us out, and when they find opposition inside, they seek to lock yourselves out as well.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Themselves.

[Alex Norris]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I say to the Government that it is not a one-way street and we think that having some checks and balances in our democracy is a good thing. In that spirit, I hope that hon. Members will vote in support of the Lords amendment.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for the introduction where he described me as being cheeky faced. It will stun the Opposition and surprise the Government that I will be voting enthusiastically with the Government in the Lobby later, so clearly my re-education is having the desired effect.

I rise to speak against the Lords amendment and in favour of the Government’s motion to disagree. I view the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 not through rose-tinted spectacles as a great beacon of constitutional progress, but as a politically expedient measure that helped to secure a coalition in which the junior partner feared being unceremoniously dumped part way through an electoral term.

The lesson of the passage of this Bill thus far, and indeed of the work of the Joint Committee and of my Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, is that the genie cannot simply be put back in the bottle. I slightly disagree with the Minister, because by removing a prerogative power, the 2011 Act made it impossible to return completely to the status quo ante, hence the need for the Bill where we are codifying Dissolution for the first time. That cannot easily be argued against.

At the heart of the Lords amendment is whether the House should maintain a veto on Dissolution and the calling of an election, and I believe that it should not. It is for the monarch to dissolve the House following a request—I emphasise “a request”, unlike the early drafting of the Bill, which suggested that Her Majesty be advised to dissolve—from Her Majesty’s Government.