Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I am tempted to talk about the word “consensus”. I said on day one of the Committee that New Zealand had a three-year term of Parliament. When the cut in the number of UK seats was devised as a consensus between the two parts of the coalition, I think that one lot wanted to get rid of 60 seats and the other wanted 100 seats, so they went for a compromise of 50. On the basis of that, I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, that perhaps there could be a compromise here but it could be three years rather than four or five.

I turn more seriously to the question of four years. As the noble and learned Lord has reminded us, the Minister acknowledged at Second Reading that this was a judgment and there was no absolutely right or wrong answer. I feel that the Government have made the wrong judgment in going for five years rather than four.

There is a lot to quote from earlier debates. I have chosen the quote from Herbert Asquith that is in the report, partly because it was exactly 100 years and one month ago today when he said that we should be desirous of a House of Commons that is,

“always either fresh from the polls which gave it authority, or—and this is an equally effective check upon acting in defiance of the popular will—it is looking forward to the polls at which it will have to render an account of its stewardship”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/2/1911; col. 1749.]

More recently, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said on 1 March:

“as the election comes up accountability is a very, very strong thing indeed”.—[Official Report, 1/3/11; col. 1045.]

For any MP, he went on to say, an election is very effective for accountability.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who has already been quoted, claimed that the Government’s ambitious programme would transfer power away from Parliament and empower people. So we have to ask why the Government want to diminish accountability by extending the life of the other place from four years to five. It cannot be about increasing accountability. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has suggested, to think about two periods of five years—that is, 10 years —is what makes me think that the figure of five is wrong. Ten years seems to be too long. Someone just short of their 18th birthday might have to wait until they were 23 to vote, and they would be 28 before they could vote again. The period from 18 to 28 is the whole of the setting down of one’s life, but the Government are suggesting having only one vote during that time.

Similarly, imagine a Government with a small majority or indeed no overall control. It would be extremely hard to run the country like that, as I know, but the Government would be denied the right to go for a working majority, somewhat dreading every death or resignation and the resultant by-election—or maybe hoping for them so that they could then engineer a defeat on a confidence vote. Leaving it that way to call an election could mean that it would happen at the very worst of times: in the middle of a freezing winter, during school holidays, in a financial crisis or even at a time of national mourning, to say nothing of major international events or indeed the convenience of Her Majesty. Some of those questions are about the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, but they are far more likely to arise and be more acute with an over-lengthy five-year Parliament.

The question is particularly pertinent for a coalition. A coalition is new to the electorate and therefore needs a vote sooner on its performance than five years. Also, because its manifesto was never put to the electorate or endorsed at a general election, it seems right that it should not be run for a full five years. Although in general four years is right, it is even more acute either for a Government with a small majority or indeed for a new coalition that four years down the line rather than five is the right time to involve the electorate in whether they wish that Government to continue.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the length of the period between elections in normal times. If it is agreed that five years will be written into legislation, over a period of 20 years the electorate will be denied an opportunity to go to the polls to decide what form the Government will take and which Government will be returned. We had an opportunity last week to hear the Minister on this matter. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was good enough to talk about it. He said that the present system gave awesome power to the Prime Minister of the day. However, what seems to have happened in the room that was talked about in the story from the autobiography of Mr Laws is that awesome power was given to the people around that table. It strikes me that many of the people around that table, who may be very good at economics and other matters, were not experienced parliamentarians. If they had been experienced parliamentarians, they would have said what I am saying today: four years is far better than five.

I ask the Minister to consider four years for the sake of the House and how it operates. I know what he said last week, when we had a warm-up and were able to hear some of his thinking. That is good; we could then think about what he had to say and come back, as we have today. I think the Minister said that his case was that in the fifth year Members of Parliament decide that they want to be in their constituencies. That is not because they are lazy—far from it. They want to work on the hustings; they know an election is coming up and want to be in their constituency. The Minister’s case was that they would do that in the fourth year. However, they would not do that because the Government would not run out of legislation in the fourth year. Therefore, if Members of Parliament missed three-line Whips, it would be duly noted in their constituency. Constituents would say, “Why was he or she here on a Tuesday, missing a three-line Whip?”. That is an incentive to keep Members of Parliament here in the fourth year, rather than in the fifth.

I bolster the case about Governments running out of legislation in the fifth year. The House of Commons Library tells me that in 2009-10 Session, there was not one vote taken on the Floor of the House of Commons on a Thursday. They had topical debates on a Thursday. Some were on very important matters but they were debates. On Thursdays we turned the House of Commons into a debating society, which meant there was no record of whether anyone turned up to represent their constituents. I reiterate what I said the other week. Tam Dalyell, an excellent parliamentarian, told me as a young MP, “Michael, if they want you, tell them you will be available on a Saturday or a Friday night. Don’t take the sleeper up to Glasgow and then get back down for the vote. Tell them that your job is to be in the House of Commons”. However, the Executive of the House of Commons at that time were pleased to have topical debates with no votes so that everyone who wanted to could get away, which meant that more power was put into the hands of the Executive. That is contrary to what the Liberals have said on the Floor of the House of Commons and, indeed, here. They have said, “We don’t want the Executive to get more power”.

Last week the Minister said what fantastic power we were giving to the Prime Minister by enabling him or her to call an election on a date of their choosing, when the polls looked good. The coalition comprises two parties that fought like cats and dogs in the House of Commons—I had to hold their jackets at times—because their policies were so different. However, the leaders of those parties said: “We are getting together to sort out the financial problems of this nation; that’s why we are together, but here’s the wee deal—that we get a five-year Parliament”. There are people with more knowledge of political history than I but I put it to the Committee that Ted Heath might have had the power to go to the country that the Minister talks about, but it did not work for him. Ted Heath said: “It’s me or the miners”, but the country did not re-elect him. He did not serve his full term. Therefore, the great power that he had did not work in his favour; nor did it work in Harold Wilson’s favour in 1970. I remember hearing as a young canvasser that Labour would win again, and the polls all said that. Harold Wilson was perceived as the winner, but during the 1970 election word came through that he would lose, and he did. The same happened with Jim Callaghan. Had Jim Callaghan gone to the country before the great winter of discontent, perhaps he would have won—who knows? The Prime Minister may have awesome power but it has been shown that that power does not always work in his favour.

The noble and gallant Lord spoke about disgruntled Ministers. I suggest that there will be a stack of disgruntled former Ministers. I can hear them now saying, when they were appointed, “Tony said I am the only one who can do this job”. Then they go on to Sky TV—the lovely thing about Sky TV is that if you cannot sleep in the middle of the night, you go on to Sky TV—and the same Minister says, “What a wonderful Prime Minister we have”. I do not know whether it was reported that one Minister said: “I would jump under a bus for the Prime Minister”. I would not jump under a bus for anybody. I do not know whether it was a moving bus or a stationary bus but it shows how much that Minister loved the Prime Minister. Then there is a reshuffle because the Prime Minister has a difficulty; he has to get fresh blood in because the Back-Benchers are saying, “They’ve had their turn at being Ministers; we want to be Ministers now”.

I do not want to mention names but it has been reported that the gentleman who wrote the book might get back into government. I say good luck and three cheers to him. However, there are too many Ministers on the Front Bench so somebody must fall off the end. The logic of that gentleman getting back into government is that someone else will lose their job and become a disgruntled former Minister. The lovely thing about that is that the same people, when they lose their jobs, do not say any more that the Prime Minister is a great person. They sidle up to you in the tea room and say, “He’s a rotter. He’s a bounder”. That gave me an opportunity to say, “But you were not saying that about him two years ago”. The media then make mischief because they have a pool of individuals who are willing to criticise the Government.

That then leads me to consider the people who matter—the electorate. They turn on their televisions, as do the politicians, and they say, “What is going on here? They are all fighting like cats and dogs”. They then think of the old saying in the Bible that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and they say to themselves, “We elected these people to be unified. They promised us unity and now they are fighting with one another”. That will happen in the fifth year. For the sake of running the House properly, four years is far better than this fixed five years.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

14A: Clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end insert “unless this date coincides with an election to a reformed House of Lords”

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this amendment would mean that an election to the other place could not take place on the same day as an election to this House. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place suggested that the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill should be discussed with the draft Bill on reforming the House of Lords so that the two fundamental constitutional issues could be considered alongside each other. Indeed, that somewhat wise committee noted:

“Elections to a reformed House of Lords may well prove a further complicating element”.

Let us pause for a moment to see what considerations and complications might arise. There are two assumptions. The first is that the elections to the other place and to your Lordships’ reformed House would take place on the same day. If that is the correct assumption, I assume that the elections to this House would also be for the same five-year fixed term—if that, rather than a term of four years, is accepted. One has to assume that the term would be shortened should an election be triggered in the other House. In the mean time, what should happen? Will Members of this House be able to resign, for example, to fight a seat in the Commons? Maybe they will be able to resign from this House, having been elected here, for any other reasons via—presumably—the equivalent of the Chiltern Hundreds. If so, what if the following by-elections to this House changed the composition of this House so that the Government in the Commons could no longer get their programme through this House but were unable to call an election in the other place because that is not allowed for in this Bill?

The second assumption is that elections to the two Houses would take place on different days. It is interesting then to ask the question: for how long would Members elected to this House sit and would that be for a fixed term, regardless of what elections were to take place in the other place? What will be the gap between the general elections in which people are elected to the two Houses? On the assumption that they are held on different days, halfway through a Commons parliamentary term your Lordships’ House could change hands so that there was stalemate, but with the upper House perhaps claiming the legitimacy of a fresh mandate and—if elected by proportional representation—a more representative mandate. If this House claimed a fresh mandate in light of current affairs, where would that leave the Commons—unable to challenge it or to refresh itself by virtue of a new election and mandate? Could the equivalent of a no-confidence vote in this House then trigger a response in the other House, to enable it to call an election?

It is worth recalling that our Select Committee on the Constitution noted that, in regard to the triggering of an early general election for the Commons, the Bill should contain a form of safety valve in case the Government lost,

“the confidence of the Commons or where a political or economic crisis … affected the country”.

However, either of those, should they happen, might be felt most quickly in your Lordships’ House—should an election here come swiftly after, or even during, such a crisis—and change its composition so that this House felt it more truly reflected the current views of voters. The new elected House might then almost make things ungovernable if it felt that it had to restrain the Commons from action that the electorate had demonstrated would displease it.

These are exactly the sort of questions that will in due course be debated with regard to the plans for this Chamber. However, it seems odd that we will entrench the date for the elections to one part of Parliament without any reference to elections to the other part. Perhaps, therefore, at the very least, the Minister will simply clarify whether the first tranche of the elections to this place is also envisaged for 7 May 2015, and the next tranche for May 2020. If not, what are the ideas about the harmony of the two Chambers, given the provisions of the Bill? I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has done us a real favour in introducing her amendment. It is a mischievous one, as she knows, but she has brought before us a subject that may come again. Personally, I hope it does not. As one who believes strongly in the virtue and value of a non-elected second Chamber, I hope that this Chamber will not be abolished and replaced by another. The noble Baroness has indicated the sort of things that could happen if there were two elected Chambers. There is the challenge over which is the more legitimate, and the challenge as to whether you can possibly—even though you may wish to—retain the supremacy of the other place if a second Chamber here is elected. Many of us believe that you cannot. Many of us believe that it is far simpler, better and less ambiguous to have one mandate held by one House, rather than a mandate divided between two.

It will be interesting to see whether my noble and learned friend the Minister can give us some of the answers that the noble Baroness sought. He ought to reflect, as should others in government, on the wise words of Ernest Bevin, one of the greatest Foreign Secretaries that our country has had in the past century. Talking of some political problem, he said:

“If you open that Pandora’s box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out”.

I urge the wisdom of those words on my noble and learned friend before he replies.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am in no way trying to dismiss the suggestion that my noble friend makes. I am not in a position to indicate how that committee will be established. No doubt there will be nomination procedures from both Houses. I suspect that it would be rather odd if a contrary view or two was not expressed on it, but I am not in a position to indicate that ahead of the Bill being published. I assure the Committee that the timings of elections to the reformed second Chamber has been considered carefully by the Government and the proposals will be in the draft Bill.

I certainly take my noble friend’s point that, having spent most of the time on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill listening to the Opposition saying that the Bill should be split, it is somewhat intriguing then to be told that not only should it be split but that two other Bills should be added on to it. I do not think that the experience of the CRAG Bill in the previous Parliament, where numerous constitutional principles were put together under the one heading of a constitutional reform Bill, was necessarily the most satisfactory experience.

The noble Baroness mentioned entrenching the election date for one House while the other was pending. At least it will be known when this Bill has got on to the statute book what Parliament has agreed with regard to a fixed-term election. If this Bill had not come forward and we did not have fixed-term Parliaments, an election to the other place could have happened at any time. The potential for some of the confusion and concerns to which the noble Baroness referred would have been multiplied many times over if it was proposed that this House should have a fixed term while the other place could have elections as and when the Prime Minister of the day thought best to call them. Therefore, when the Joint Committee of both Houses considers the draft Bill, it will do so in the knowledge of what Parliament has passed in the context of fixed-term Parliaments. This Bill deals with dates of the general election to the other place. These should be set before we consider the dates of elections to the reformed second Chamber. There will be ample opportunity to discuss elections to this Chamber when the Bill is published in draft form and, I suspect, plenty of further opportunities to discuss it when the reality of the Bill comes before the other place and your Lordships' House. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister and the other speakers for their contributions. The Minister said that it was an interesting amendment, rather like the Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times”. I am not sure about the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, calling it mischievous. It was seriously meant because it is about a package of reforms, as my noble and learned friend said. I do not think that means putting them in one Bill but rather having a real idea of where we are taking our constitution before we tackle any one bit of it, so that we see it in the round. Nevertheless, given the comments that have been made, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 14A withdrawn.