Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Austin Mitchell and John Hemming

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I support the proposal to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and his colleagues on raising the issue. It seems to me that we should have much shorter Parliaments. It is possible to have fixed terms, but there has to be a right or an ability to end a Parliament in circumstances such as war, economic crisis or disaster. We can therefore have a term that is fixed, but the period should be shorter.

The best evidence against five-year Parliaments—frankly, five years is too long—is the long, slow death rattle of this Parliament. If Members want to see a monument to the failure of five-year Parliaments, they should look at what is happening now. In effect, this Parliament and this Government did all they were going to do in their first three years. Most of that was wrong of course, but it was done during those first three years. Frankly, we are now just hanging on in this House with nothing particular to do. It reminds me of the old Bing Crosby song:

“We’re busy doing nothing,

Working the whole day through,

Trying to find lots of things not to do”.

The attendance at this extremely important constitutional debate shows that Members do not particularly want to be in the Chamber; they would rather be in their constituencies fighting an election campaign. That is what, at the end of this Parliament, we are really doing: if we are not fighting an election campaign, we are busy throwing custard pies at each other.

At this moment in this Parliament, the Government have got to the end of their tether. There has never been a better moment to use Oliver Cromwell’s words—they apply to all of us—when he dismissed the Long Parliament:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

But this agony now has to be prolonged, with the farce of pretending to do things when we are just electioneering and throwing trivia at each other, until the end of March, before there is a renewal in the election in May. This Parliament is conclusive proof that five years is too long.

The hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) said that four years might be reasonable, but emphasised the need for continuity in economic policy. The usual claim for a five-year Parliament is that that gives the Government time to implement their policies, but this Parliament has given this Government time to change every policy that they started out with. We started out with “Hug a hoodie”, but that turned out to be cutting benefits for young people. We started out with “Hug a Husky” and “Save the environment”, but that ended up as “green crap.” We started out with “Support the European Union”, but we now use every possible occasion to provoke dissent and argument within the European Union. We started out with “Immigrants welcome”, but it is now, “Keep everybody out.” We started out with “We’re all in it together”, but that has ended up with putting the penalties and pains on the poor, while rewarding the rich.

Even continuity of economic policy, which is claimed to be the most sacrosanct element during this Parliament, has not been provided by a five-year term. The only continuity of economic policy to which this Government can lay claim—apart from cuts to everything, or slash and burn, which is the Government’s only long-term economic plan—has been produced not by them, but by the Bank of England. Frankly, the independent Bank of England has saved the Government. We now have a recovery, but if interest rates are kept flat to the floor, as they have been for the six years since the crisis, and if money is printed at a record rate—through quantitative easing, we have printed £375 billion—there is bound, at some stage, to be a recovery. That is not the Government’s long-term economic plan. Their plan was to cut and slash and burn everything and to roll back the state. The Bank of England’s management of the economy has produced the only successful long-term economic policy. Therefore, the argument for long-term economic policies also fails.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is too hopeful about long parliamentary terms. He mentioned five-year and even 10-year Parliaments, which caused me to shudder in my seat. What is the best term for a Parliament? I do not want it to be thought that, now that I am leaving, I want to cut everybody else’s joy and pleasure by reducing the parliamentary term to three years, but I would like to do so. I have said that consistently. I proposed it when the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was discussed in 2011.

[John Hemming]

The hon. Gentleman is making the case for shorter Parliaments. The question is who should make the decision. Should the term be fixed or should the Prime Minister be given back the power to make the decision purely on party interest, thereby costing everyone a lot of money?

[Austin Mitchell]

There could be a combination of the two. That happens in Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, there is a fixed three-year term, but the Prime Minister can call an election earlier. The Executive has to have that right and power. Most Governments work out their three-year term and do not go earlier. Some go earlier to seize a particular moment or because of an emergency. We have to give the Government that power, otherwise we will have the situation that Germany found itself in when the Social Democratic party had to engineer its own defeat in Parliament before it could get an election.

[John Hemming]

Why does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Prime Minister alone should be able to make that decision, rather than Parliament through a majority?

--- Later in debate ---

[Austin Mitchell]

In saying the Prime Minister, I meant the Government. It has to be a collective decision. It will effectively be a party decision, although in my experience most of the elections that have been called by the Labour party have not been party decisions, because I have not been consulted. I am not sure whether the Liberal Democrats are consulted on such matters.

[John Hemming]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the confirmation that it would be a party decision taken in the party interest. Should it not be a decision that is taken in the public interest?

[Austin Mitchell]

I think that that would be difficult to arrange. It is a political decision that is taken by the Executive. In a democratic party, I would hope that the Executive would consult the party. That did not happen before the elections that were called by my party when we were in power, but I felt that it should have done. Jim Callaghan certainly should have consulted me, because if he had called an election in October 1978, we probably would have won. He tended not to listen to my advice, however loudly it was put. That was a failure of Back-Bench power.

I am in favour of a three-year term. At a pinch, I would accept a four-year term. It should be a fixed term, with the ability to call an early election in extreme or difficult circumstances. If we had that, we would not have to have all the silliness of the recall legislation that we were dealing with on Tuesday. I have never known a more stupid Bill than the Recall of MPs Bill. I was not given the opportunity to vote against it, because there was no vote. All parties are grovelling before the electorate by saying, “Let us sacrifice ourselves and throw MPs to the wolves.” There would be no need for recall if we had a three-year term, because by the time the machinery of recall had cranked into operation, the three years would be over and the electorate would be able to turn everybody out and make a new choice.

I am being moderate by calling for short, triennial Parliaments. I am old enough to have been a Chartist, I suppose, but I am not espousing annual Parliaments, as the Chartists did. A three-year Parliament accords with the mood of the public, as we read it in the major polls and surveys. There is an alienated mood. People want to be heard. They are angry and upset. They want to have an influence, but they feel that MPs are not listening and that Parliament does not represent them.