Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Austin Mitchell and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell]

I have taken enough interventions for the time being. I want to make a few points of my own instead of being forced to respond to questions about hypothetical situations that I have not dealt with.

The Conservative party did not mention fixed-term Parliaments in its manifesto, but we did: Labour had a fixed four-year term in its manifesto. The Liberals, insofar as they had a position—they always have a lot of contradictory positions—had what the Deputy Leader of the House said when he was their spokesman on constitutional affairs, when he urged four-year terms. Perhaps he has had a message from the new leadership telling him to rescind his speeches from when he was the Liberals’ constitutional affairs spokesman. Will he listen? I know that he is very comfortable on the Front Bench—he is built for it—but there is no need for him to change his views on this issue so radically and dramatically as he seems to have done.

So the Liberals wanted four-year terms, the Conservatives had nothing about it in their manifesto and I argue that five-year terms are too long. I agree that we should have had an election in 2007. That would have meant the Labour Government going much sooner. Why am I proposing three-year terms? The Executive always want longer terms, because they want to be in power for as long as they can and because longer terms allow more time for more mistakes and for tough measures to hit the people. There are certainly some tough measures coming from this Government, which might be why they want a five-year term. Regular and more frequent elections hand power back to the people, which is what the people want. They want us kept on a shorter leash. That is what the feeling of hostility to politics, Parliament, parties and politicians that built up last year indicated to me. Triennial elections would certainly keep us on a shorter leash because we would have to go back to the people more regularly. They are suspicious of us; they think that we are out for ourselves and they want to control us more effectively.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being customarily generous in giving way. Does the experience in the congressional elections in the United States not show that their two-year terms mean that members of Congress, once re-elected, are constantly considering fundraising, canvassing and campaigning for their re-election, thereby undermining the electorate’s faith and trust in them?

[Austin Mitchell]

The US House of Representatives, which is the equivalent to our House, has a two-year term, which is very democratic, but I am proposing a three-year term, which would cause us to go back to the people much more regularly than we do now. The people want to be heard. An outstanding feature of our democracy as it has developed is the people’s desire to be listened to by this place, which they so angrily asserted in 2009. It is frustrating for people to feel that we do not listen. What better way is there of consulting the people? We should do it not through polls but through regular elections, as in Australia and New Zealand, where three-year terms work very effectively.

The people want us to be accountable, and more regular elections are the best way of keeping us accountable. Elections bring a great renewal of energy and contact with the people. They are great for concentrating our role of representing them and voicing what they want in this place; they recharge the batteries. More frequent elections would make us more vulnerable, more amenable and more prepared to listen to the people because we would have to be out there every three years listening to and meeting people and persuading them in a way that is not provided for anywhere else in our system.

This House is a great hiding place: the longer we stay here between elections, the more out of touch with the people we get. They want us to be more accountable and to listen more and they want more frequent contact. We cannot dodge that responsibility or say that reasons of statesmanship or coalition politics require us to stay hiding in this place, out of touch with the people, for five years. The condition of our being here is that we need to renew that contact as regularly as possible.

I seem to have been here for so long that I could have come in with that Asquith election victory that led to reform of the House of Lords in 1910, but I began my political career by dreading elections because one has to go out and force oneself on people and they may not want that. One has to leap up to them with a handshake and a fixed grin. One has to give them one’s opinions, listen to them and ask them questions—talk to them. That was a nervous ordeal for me and I was terrified, but over time I have come to like elections more and more, particularly if I win. That is another reason why I would like more frequent elections. They are a form of renewal and of contact with the real world that we do not otherwise get in this place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman is always entertaining, and I pay tribute to the fact that on the day the Labour party lost a 22,000 majority in 1977, they returned the hon. Gentleman in Grimsby, but will he tell the House how many people in the Dog and Duck in Great Grimsby have said to him, “I won’t vote for you, Mr Mitchell, because the term will be five years instead of four ”?

[Austin Mitchell]

None, but perhaps people will not vote for a candidate because he is too old and might not last a full term. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the issue is not frequently raised, but there is a feeling, and there was at the end of the previous Government and at the end of the Major Government, that the Government have gone on too long. That is what I want to avoid.

There is a feeling among the public that they want us to go back to them more frequently. They want to meet us more frequently. They want us out there in the streets, canvassing more frequently. That is why I say that more frequent and regular elections are basic to democracy. They put the people in power and they make the politicians prostrate before the people. The people can tell us what they want, and that is what it is all about.

The role of the House, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, is to hold power to account—to hold the Executive to account. We do not do it very well because, with a party majority, the Executive and the Prime Minister drive a steamroller through the House. Mrs Thatcher would shout down at us “Get out of the way,” and we would tremble. With John Major, the steamroller wandered all over the place, but the Executive are still powerful.

The only real way of holding power to account in this country is to put it before the people more regularly in triennial elections and give them the power to throw the rascals out—give them that choice every three years. That is basic to democracy.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Austin Mitchell and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The present system of redistribution was devised by the Conservatives. Now, finding themselves in electoral danger, they want to scrap it to protect themselves and remain in power in this tenuous coalition.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is a comic turn. Does he agree, however, that he was not so voluble when in 1970—as he is old enough to remember—a Labour Government were the only Government in history to shelve significant boundary changes for party political reasons? He was probably also not as voluble at the time of the 2005 election, when the Conservative party out-polled the Labour party in England and Labour had many dozens more seats than the Conservatives. Was that fair, or was it gerrymandering?

[Austin Mitchell]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is trying to outdo my comic turn by putting me in the House of Commons well before I was actually here, but he is entitled to do that.

I am voluble now because of the threat to democracy that is implicit in this whole process. As one of my hon. Friends said earlier, that is what is waking up the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition. It is easy enough to organise a redistribution for 650 Members, but if there are only 600 pieces in the jigsaw, the implication is that every boundary in the country must be changed. That is what is waking up the Liberal Democrats, because they tend to win seats through intense community work and community politics involving cracked paving stones and late buses, and they must have a community to work to. That settled community will be disturbed by the redistribution, and the Liberal Democrats will lose seats. Their amendments suggest that they are now waking up to that fact.

It is a bit late in the day, but I can tell the Liberal Democrats that they will lose out. The AV part of the deal, which was supposed to benefit the Liberal Democrats while the redistribution was supposed to benefit the Conservatives, will not be carried, because it will be defeated in the referendum. Then the Liberal Democrats will ask themselves, “What have we got out of this coalition? We have abandoned all our faiths, we have sacrificed everything we believe in, we have allowed massive cuts to the detriment of British society—and what have we got out of it?” The answer will be “Peanuts. Nothing.” Their only resort, if they are to prevent themselves from being thrown out in the election following the redistribution, will be to throw out the Government and stop the redistribution.

I estimate that the Liberal Democrats will belatedly begin to wake up to that fact in about 2013 or 2014, and then they will become a disruptive factor within the coalition. I am trying to prevent them from ending up in that situation—[Interruption.] No, my heart bleeds for them. I am very sympathetic because it is tragic watching them betray their principles one by one in order to cling on to power and to get bums into ministerial cars and on to ministerial Benches—but if that is what they want to do, let them. I am trying to help them by persuading them to vote for amendments 127, 341 and 38. [Interruption.] No, I am a decent man. I would have voted Liberal in 1951, except that I did not have a vote because I was too young, but I wore a Liberal rosette on my meat round. That is the full history of my association with the Liberals—it ended in 1956 with the invasion of Suez—and now I am trying to protect them.

In conclusion, we should support these amendments in order to prevent the brutality of a process that would be damaging to British democracy and the community and that would create an unsettled situation for Members of Parliament. I spent many years in New Zealand, and we had much more regular redistributions when I was there—every five years, I think. That was before proportional representation came in. The seats could be made much more equal, but as a result of the changes no Member of Parliament knew five years ahead whether he would be representing the same area, or whether some bits would be shipped out and others would be shipped in because of boundary changes, and therefore the seat he would be representing would be totally changed. I want to prevent that situation from happening here. We represent settled communities that have clear boundaries, and we should not disrupt them in this fashion just for the electoral purposes of the Conservative party.