Queen’s Speech

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Caine, who is recognised for his expertise and knowledge on all constitutional matters relating to Northern Ireland. I will restrict my comments about the gracious Speech to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

Unusually among Members of this House, I supported the then Fixed-term Parliaments Bill in 2011. As a Back-Bencher, I argued that introducing fixed-term Parliaments was one of the most tangible and meaningful moves we could make if we were serious about wanting to show the public that we were serious about putting their interests before our own. As we have heard other noble Lords argue, the change would mean the Government and Opposition facing the electorate on a predetermined date, whatever the political conditions at that time.

I supported the Bill because of the serious decline of public trust in Parliament following the expenses scandal. Indeed, looking back at my speeches during the debates at the time of the Bill’s passage, I discovered some evidence that I quoted then but had since forgotten. Populus research for the Times in 2009, at the height of the expenses scandal, showed that 74% of the public supported fixed-term Parliaments as a change to improve the political system. At that time, the only measures ranking higher among a list of 13 possible reforms were: a recall for MPs found to have broken parliamentary rules; national referendums on major constitutional issues; and local referendums on local issues where interest warranted them. That evidence is worth being reminded of, not least for the clear signs it offered, which some of us later missed or chose to ignore.

During the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, several noble Lords argued that our political system was not broken, and I agreed. My argument was that none the less, the public did not trust us to operate the system to their advantage, so we needed to look for opportunities to change in order to show that we did. That said, I am not going to argue against the Government’s decision to repeal the Act. It has not worked and it needs to go. Sadly, the electorate cannot trust us to use it for the reasons we introduced it. However, we must learn the correct lessons from our failure. If in the future we are to introduce constitutional change and argue that it is for the benefit of democracy and the electorate—I for one am very interested to hear more about that agenda—we must be sincere both in why we are doing it and maintain our commitment to that cause in how we operate once the change is made. That is the real lesson we should take from the failure of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and I hope that we are able to show that we have learned it.