Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

If the hon. Gentleman will first allow me to make this point, I shall give way.

The Library alerted me to what Asquith said in February 1911, and so I asked for the whole of the speech, which I have here. As the information from the Library and Blackburn both show, Asquith was talking about the idea that a Parliament would normally last for four years. There is not a word in Asquith’s opening speech on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill along the lines that the right hon. Gentleman who is now leader of the Liberal Democrats tried to tell us that there was. He should not busk on these points. Asquith said that the Act would lead to a normal length of four years and that was what he meant. Overall, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has pointed out, that has been the average length of a Parliament.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

May I finish this point, and then I shall of course give way? Indeed, the hon. Lady might wish to answer a question that I am about to pose to her right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.

Alongside the position adopted by a former Liberal Prime Minister—the last but one, it must be said, and look what happened to him and to his successor, although we need not detain the House on either of their fates—I want to refer to recent Liberal Democrat policy. I know that that apparently does not matter, but if the roles were reversed and if, just three years ago, the Labour party had said that there should be fixed Parliaments that should last four years, we would soon hear something about that from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches. We would hear suggestions that we were selling out and standing on our heads and that we did not know what we were talking about, and would be asked what was the point of making commitments—especially as simple a commitment as that—simply to tear them up. However, that was the Liberal Democrat position. They published a position paper—I am happy to take an intervention from the Deputy Prime Minister on this point—called “For the People, By the People”, which said that the term should be four years and not five. Let me gild that lily: David Howarth, the excellent former Member for Cambridge, introduced a ten-minute Bill to the sounds of cheering from the Liberal Democrat Benches that set a term of four years and not five. He made very good arguments that were absolutely right.

I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister has at long last spotted that coinciding the date of a general election with that of national elections in Scotland and Wales is crazy and he is about to seek to go through hoops by which the people of Scotland and Wales and the political parties that are an essential part of the process—

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[Mr Straw]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I promised the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) that I would give way to her first. I shall then give way both to him and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea).

[Lorely Burt]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Between the two sides this evening, we are having an interesting history lesson. Perhaps I might point him towards a more recent piece of history: the passage of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, which covers the regulations for election campaign spending and also refers to five-year Parliaments. That Act was supported by many of our colleagues who are now on the Opposition Benches.

[Mr Straw]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady was in the House at the time, but I was responsible for that Bill, which emerged from cross-party negotiation. It was an agreed measure. As for the reference to five years, we were not setting the length of a Parliament in the Bill. We were accepting that as a fact and then determining how we dealt with party funding within that frame. There was no commitment whatever in principle in favour of five years rather than four.

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[Lorely Burt]

I enter this nationalist debate with some trepidation because, as an English MP, I have not been involved in this type of situation. Does my hon. Friend not think that the electorates in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have the ability and intelligence to differentiate between two different elections and to make their minds up appropriately on the day?

[Mr Williams]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I am drawing a distinction between a general election and a referendum. Fighting two general elections on different boundaries will potentially create huge problems. I have never doubted the intelligence of the electorate of Ceredigion to make judgments on all sorts of things, but some of the concern is legitimate. Like the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), I have not had any letters about fixed-term Parliaments, but I guarantee that people outside polling stations will be very concerned if we have these two elections on the same day. There will be a lot of concern and anxiety about it. It might not have manifested itself yet, but it will if the two elections go ahead on the same day.

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[Lorely Burt]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Laing]

I would like to do so, but I cannot, because other Members are waiting to speak.

The Opposition have been self-righteous in their criticism of the way in which the Government are introducing constitutional change. Let us not forget the piecemeal way in which the Labour Government brought about constitutional change. Indeed, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill that they introduced received about 18 months of pre-legislative scrutiny. It was introduced in the House, and completed all its stages in plenty of time. Half an hour before Third Reading, the Labour Government introduced about 100 pages of amendments. The Bill went to the House of Lords, and just before its final consideration, they added an entire new Bill on a referendum on the alternative vote. The Opposition should therefore be careful in their self-righteousness about the way in which we conduct pre-legislative scrutiny. Having said that, I agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Select Committee—he had no responsibility for the previous Government, or very little, I think.

It is wrong to introduce constitutional change in a piecemeal fashion. We should look at the overall effect of the legislation before us, not just the particular issue that is under consideration. It is wrong, at any time, to do constitutional change in one place, then in another. We ought to look at the whole constitution to see how it is balanced. It is, however, our duty in the House to do not what is the short-term expedient but what is in the long-term right. I am willing to put aside that important principle this evening for the greater good of the stability of the coalition and the stability that that brings to our country. I therefore urge my hon. Friends to support the Bill.