Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Cash
I do not deny for a minute that that is one of the consequences, but if we were to carry this new clause, it would effectively be the end of the Bill. As I look around the House and see the huge number of people attending this debate, I do not believe that there is the slightest chance of my winning the Division—
Mr Cash
Oh, I see. I am extremely grateful to hear what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), that fierce defender of British liberty—when it suits him—has to say. In the light of what my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) has said, it would not cause me any concern if my new clause were passed simply because it would require a rethink, when there would be a completely new situation. Does my hon. Friend want to intervene again on that? No.
Mr Cash
I can only repeat what that Committee has said: it states that the appropriate length of a fixed parliamentary term should be no more than four years. The position is, therefore, that that powerful Committee has given that advice to the House of Lords, which has yet to be given the opportunity to vote on these proposals. I think we are moving into territory where there will be proper scrutiny, as it has been described—although the word “filibuster” nearly slipped out—as has proved to be the case in respect of provisions in the alternative vote Bill currently before the House of Lords. There may yet be the possibility of similar activity with regard to how long the fixed parliamentary term should be.
For all those reasons, I believe that the provisions I have felt concerned to raise through tabling new clause 5 are merited. They are consistent with proper constitutional practice and good sense. The attempt to, let us say, fix the next fixed-term Parliament ought to be prevented at all costs.
Chris Bryant
I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on his amendment and the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) on his amendment, which I shall address in a few moments. I should, of course, have called them “new clauses”; Mr Speaker corrected the hon. Member for Stone on that earlier. However, I think that the hon. Member for North East Somerset rather misled the House. He did not do so in any dishonourable way, but he suggested that he was not here in 1911. I do not believe that any Member of this House believes that he was not here then or, for that matter, in 1832 and 1641. If it was not exactly him, on each of those occasions it was certainly his predecessor who made almost identical speeches. So I congratulate him on his consistency, which has lasted not only for the length of a Lib Dem manifesto, but through the centuries, and I am sure he will be here for many generations to come.
Mr Jenkin
The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that someone just like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset was doubtless here in 1911, just as there was probably someone just like the hon. Gentleman and someone just like me. This House represents a continuity in this great kingdom of ours. He adverts to it with regard to only one Member, but it applies to all of us.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure that that is right because, for example, there were no women in this House or in the other House for many centuries. So changes have taken place, and change is just as important as continuity—that was going to be my argument.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset praised the House of Lords and the job of work it is doing at the moment down the other end of the building, where I hope his father will be stoutly defending not the Government but the cause of freedom and democracy—I am sure he will be. I wish to sound a slight note of caution to the hon. Gentleman. I have long supported an elected second Chamber, but over the past few years the Second Chamber has become far more partisan, because a higher proportion of its Members now take a party Whip. That applies in all parts of that House. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that Labour Members do, but what I said is true of all political parties in the House of Lords. I hope that there will be an elected second Chamber, and if there is the relationship between the Chambers will have to be written down in statute. Otherwise, either there will be permanent gridlock or, even more dangerously, we will face the problem of the Government having absolutely no check on them because they will enjoy a majority in this House and down the other end of the building. I can think of no other system in the world containing no such check. I say to the hon. Member for North East Somerset that although one praises the House of Lords, where Labour and Cross-Bench peers are doing a good job of scrutiny, some dangers are coming down the road.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset also relied on the Salisbury convention, whereby the Lords would not stand in the way of something adumbrated in a general election manifesto on which a Government were elected. In the previous Parliament the Liberal Democrats said that they believed that the Salisbury convention no longer held. I suspect that a convention written in a gentlemen’s club and redrafted several times during the 20th century probably will not stand the test of time and we will need something rather more secure for our constitutional settlement.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Bill extends Parliament’s life beyond the five-year period that, thus far, has been allowed; clause 1 allows the Prime Minister to extend or shorten the five-year fixed term by two months, although that is reliant on motions in this House and in the second Chamber. That is one of the many reasons we have argued that the Bill will lead to fewer general elections. That is so particularly because the Bill provides for a five-year term, rather than a four-year term, as the hon. Member for Stone said, but also because of the special provision allowing for the extra extension of two months. We believe that that is a problem and that the voters of this country probably want us not to have the longest fixed-term Parliaments in the world. If we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, voters would probably prefer us to adopt the policy of the Liberal Democrats before the general election and the policy that Labour has pursued ever since the Plant commission, when we were mired deep in opposition many years ago, which is for four-year fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, that is not available to us in the Bill.
Mr Cash
I have been increasingly impressed over the months by the manner in which the hon. Gentleman has tackled these constitutional questions. He is putting the House in a far better position by the manner in which he explains many of his points. Having got over that bit of flattery, I point out that it might have been a good idea if, at this point in his speech—perhaps he is coming on to it—he had referred to the comments of the Clerk of the Parliaments. The Bill will go to the House of Lords, as I have pointed out, and we do not quite know what their lordships will make of it. Not only did the Constitution Committee come to a certain conclusion on the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has raised, but so did the Clerk of the Parliaments. He said:
“It is...clear that the [Fixed-term Parliaments] Bill does contain provision to extend the maximum duration of a Parliament beyond five years, and that it cannot, therefore, be passed under the Parliament Acts procedure unless, before it leaves the Commons, the [relevant] provisions...are amended.”
Professors Bradley and Oliver agreed. That is an important point. Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for making rather a long intervention, but I wanted to get it on the record that this is not just a minor matter but something on which the House of Lords appears largely to have made up its mind.
Chris Bryant
I am always a bit reluctant to presume what the House of Lords’ final view might be, not least because three new Members of the House of Lords are being introduced every day at the moment—it is something of a moving feast down the far end of the corridor. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the Clerk of the Parliaments, and incidentally I want to pass on congratulations to Mr Beamish, who has just been appointed the new Clerk of the Parliaments. It is also true that the Clerk of this House has made it clear that there are significant concerns about clause 2, which I shall come on to when I discuss the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Stone. I am also always very grateful for any oleaginous support I can get.
The point I hope to make about new clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for North East Somerset, is that I think that there is already adequate provision in the Parliament Act to ensure that Parliament cannot be extended. His new clause would apply to the whole of clause 1, so we would not be able to amend any of the elements of it, even if they had been adumbrated in a manifesto commitment and a single party won the next general election with a majority and legislated in that way. We would not be able to use the Parliament Act even to shorten the length of a Parliament.
If we win the next general election, notwithstanding the fact that we will have won, in a sense, the right for a five-year fixed-term Parliament—I hope we will— want to reduce the number of years from five years to four. As the hon. Member for North East Somerset has shown, historical consistency across the years is a good political attribute rather than a failing.
Thomas Docherty
Does my hon. Friend agree with my assessment of the Parliament Act that the purpose of stipulating that parliamentary terms cannot be lengthened was to ensure a democratic check against the powers of the Prime Minister? Would not the hon. Member for North East Somerset’s new clause, regrettably, act as a check against democracy by stopping the right of the democratic House to shorten the length of a term? That is not the spirit in which the Parliament Act was intended.
Chris Bryant
Yes, although as the hon. Member for North East Somerset said at the very beginning of his speech, all this will become rather unnecessary once we have legislated for an elected, whether fully or substantially, second Chamber. At that point, elements of the Parliament Act, or even the whole Act, will almost certainly have to be reshaped.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I absolutely understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that a Government elected on a manifesto for four years would not want to be obstructed by the House of Lords, and I doubt whether the Lords would obstruct them in those circumstances. Does he have any sympathy with the view that constitutional issues ought to have greater protection than ordinary Bills, particularly as judges have decided that there is a category of constitutional Acts? Should we decide that rather than the judiciary?
Chris Bryant
My general approach is that we should always seek to take decisions ourselves, rather than leave them to judges to take for us, because we are elected. However, the history of English common law and the way in which it has developed is such that judges have, by the precedents they have set, elaborated on that law. We have sometimes then decided to incorporate those interpretations into statute law, so there has been a constant relationship between the two. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) is muttering about Scottish law, but I am being very careful because I know much less about Scottish law than I do about English law, which also applies in Wales, so I am going to the edge of my knowledge and not a step further.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset is right that we will need, at some point, to put into statute law the relationship between this Chamber and an elected second Chamber, as we will want to establish that more firmly. Perhaps, as has happened in every other constitution that has been written in the world, special provision will be made for changing the constitution itself. In Germany, there has to be a vote of a certain majority in both Houses both before and after a general election. That was enforced by us in the writing of the German constitution after the second world war. In Spain, changes have been made to the constitution since the death of Franco, but the Spanish, too, can proceed only if there is a significant majority within the Cortes and the Senate. In short, my answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes.
In essence, my argument regarding new clause 3 is that it is not necessary and that it could be problematic for a new Government, because they might not be able to get their way even on a manifesto commitment that had been clearly laid down. The real danger concerns the extension of parliamentary terms—something that has always worried people in relation to the freedoms and rights of the British people, or rather the people of the United Kingdom. That is already protected in the Parliament Act, which will stand until we revise all these measures. Parliament has been extended in the past. That happened during the second world war when extensions were agreed on an annual basis. I am not sure whether that was voted on every year, but the hon. Member for North East Somerset might know.
Let me move to the new clause of the hon. Member for Stone. I note that the hon. Member for North East Somerset said that we have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis—he being Scylla and the hon. Member for Stone being Charybdis. My uncertain memory of Homer is that Odysseus chose to surrender a few sailors to Scylla rather than a whole ship to the whirlpool that was Charybdis, but I am in favour of Charybdis this afternoon.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We are now going to the end of my knowledge, and I think it would be very useful if we returned to new clause 5.
Chris Bryant
Indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I am not sure that we really have got to the edge of your knowledge; I think your knowledge is boundless, and consequently I agree with you. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, is talking about the pillars of Hercules, which is a rather fine pub I have sometimes frequented in—well, north London somewhere.
The new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Stone seems quite sensible, because we believe that section 2 has a series of elements that, as the Clerk of the House has pointed out, are problematic. We think that because the provision has been put into statute rather than included in the Standing Orders of the House, there is a real danger that elements could be questioned in the courts, and one would then have a dramatic constitutional crisis. Consequently, we understand that, as the hon. Gentleman said, those elements are there entirely to bind together the coalition. We understand why the coalition would want to maintain that element, but we certainly do not believe that a future Government should be bound by it.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that no Parliament is bound by its predecessor and no Parliament can bind its successor. However, there is one sense in which it can delay its successor, because it makes it have to re-legislate if it wants to take away a part of statute law. It seems to me that since it is clear that this piece of constitutional—
Chris Bryant
I was thinking of jiggery-pokery. Section 2 is being proceeded with not on the basis of consensus across the House, but on the basis solely of an agreement between the two coalition partners, so it would seem to us to make sense to make an allowance in the Bill that the section would die at the next general election. I note that the hon. Gentleman has crafted his new clause carefully so that it does not say 2015; it simply says that section 2 expires when the Parliament that was elected in 2010 comes to its end. At that point, whatever new Government had been elected could choose whether to continue with the provisions or to let them lapse. If it were a Labour Government, I am pretty confident that we would want to ensure that the provisions lapsed. However, what other parties may want to do is for others to determine.
The key point is that we would not want to have to introduce primary legislation to repeal this element of the Bill. For those reasons I am keen to support the hon. Member for Stone. I do not think his new clause quite throws the whole of the ship into the whirlpool, but I think that the throwing of a few sailors into the mouths of the demon in North East Somerset would be inappropriate, and consequently we shall support new clause 5 but not new clause 3. I very much hope that we shall be able to divide the House on this matter.
Mr Jenkin
That was the purpose of my referring to Lord Phillips’s recent obiter dicta, in which he implied that later Acts of Parliament can effectively repeal the parts of the 1689 Act that protect Parliament’s privileges. I do not think that that is satisfactory, and Parliament needs to think clearly about how we remain in democratic control of this country’s constitutional settlement.
Using legislative techniques, such as those suggested by my hon. Friend, is the direction in which we ought to move. Some people will say that means moving towards a written constitution, but that is to misunderstand our constitution. It is partly written and partly not written. The point is to determine who is in charge. Parliament should be in charge, with the necessary checks and balances between the two Houses. So I very much welcome the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has initiated on this topic. This debate will run and run, even though we might not be able to agree or divide on his new clause.
I put my name to new clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, partly because it provides an opportunity to remind ourselves of how bad the Bill is. I am afraid that I am appalled that it was introduced in this way. I cannot recall any Government ever introducing a Bill to manipulate the constitution for their own purposes in such a nakedly self-interested way. Clause 2 is simply a fig leaf to ameliorate the problems that arise from fixed-term Parliaments.
Let us remind ourselves of the provisions of clause 2. The two-thirds provision is obviously open to manipulation—assuming that the mechanism does not drag us into disputes with the courts—because if the Government of the day tabled a motion of no confidence in themselves, it would hardly be likely that the Opposition would oppose it, so a general election would still be available at the initiative of the Executive. In a coalition arrangement, the smaller partner might decide not to take part in such a process, meaning that the motion would be opposed and, by arrangement with the Opposition, perhaps passed by only a simple majority. Under the Bill, we are therefore creating arrangements by which a junior coalition partner may switch horses halfway through a Parliament.
I believe that the Liberal Democrats wanted a fixed-term Parliament so that they could swap coalition partners halfway through the Parliament. Lo and behold, we now read in the papers that the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister seem to be striking up a new friendship—perhaps that heralds the switch. Of course, I am talking hypothetically—the subject is theoretical—but, constitutionally, the possibility exists. It is extraordinary that we are contemplating putting in place arrangements that could bring about a change of Government, Prime Minister and Administration without a general election, but that is what the Bill provides for. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) seems to be looking at me quizzically.
Chris Bryant
I am looking at the hon. Gentleman quizzically, because, under the existing arrangements, there have been many changes of Prime Minister and Administration without a general election. Although I recognise that the hon. Gentleman stood at the general election on a manifesto that said that a change of Prime Minister should be followed by a general election within six months, I note that he has not tabled an amendment that would have that effect.
Mr Jenkin
Privately, I can confide to the House that I always thought that that proposition was a bit daft—it seemed like ingratiation. Whenever the ruling party changes its leader, meaning that there is a change of Prime Minister, the Opposition always cough and splutter loudly, and express the view that, in all justice, there should be a general election. The newspapers usually join in the fun, because they like general elections, too, but, in reality, we all know that there is absolutely no need for an election. There is usually a degree of continuity when there is a change of party leader because the same party is in charge and it is unlikely that a lot of the predecessor’s policies would be overthrown. One or two things usually change, but generally there is continuity.
We are considering, however, the possibility of a change of Administration involving a different party. We know that the Labour party attempted to form some kind of rainbow coalition with the Liberal Democrats after the last election—[Interruption.] That was what we were told, anyway. Later in this Parliament—perhaps if the balance of power has shifted a bit towards the Opposition following by-elections—the Liberal Democrats could abandon the Conservatives in a vote of no confidence. In such circumstances, the Conservatives might be clever enough to join in that vote of no confidence to ensure that there would be a general election, but it would be far more likely that the vote would be followed by a reordering of the Executive, which might well involve the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats.
Let us suppose that the maths in the House were slightly different and the two main parties were more evenly balanced. The Liberal Democrats then could genuinely choose which partner they wanted. Through the Bill, we are creating constitutional circumstances under which the third party could change the Government at will without a general election.
Chris Bryant
I am slightly flummoxed by the hon. Gentleman’s charming naivety about what might have happened after the general election. The Bill does many things that are inappropriate, but I do not think it does that, and the truth of the matter is that there have been many changes of Administration over the centuries under the existing arrangements, not least in the first and second world wars. Having a fixed-term Parliament does not in itself mean what the hon. Gentleman has described will happen. It is perfectly possible that we will win a significant number of by-elections over the coming years, or that some Liberal Democrats or others may change their party affiliation, and—[Interruption.] It is possible; I said only that. The Minister should do the nice bit again. In such circumstances, the mathematics would change.
Mr Jenkin
Inevitably, these debates always depend on speculation about what might happen, which is the one rather unsatisfactory thing about debating the future of the constitution. I have always been regarded as a bit of a pessimist about the European Union, but I did point out to a colleague that, so far, I have been proved right, and if these arrangements remain the same indefinitely, sooner or later I will be proved right again.
The point is that the Bill—except for this new measure in clause 2—is intended to remove the safety valve that allows for an early general election. However, that clause is the worst part of the Bill. As we were told by the Clerk of the House in his memorandum, before the Bill was considered in Committee:
“The Bill brings the internal proceedings of the House into the ambit of the Courts, albeit indirectly by the route of Speaker’s certificates.”
The procedures of the House, votes of confidence, Speaker’s certificates and two-thirds majorities all become potentially justiciable, notwithstanding the Bill of Rights. For that reason, I fully support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone.
A vain attempt to remove the courts from considering those matters is made in clause 2(3), which states:
“A certificate under this section is conclusive for all purposes.”
Unfortunately, clause 2(3) is itself justiciable by the courts, because we are putting this into statute. That part of the Bill, which attempts to ameliorate the problems that arise from having fixed-term Parliaments, creates the biggest constitutional headaches for Parliament itself by inviting the courts to intervene in those matters.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I support the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but I shall talk about the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) invoked Homer. In the case of my hon. Friend’s new clause, I would invoke Cicero:
“Those who know nothing of the time before they were born shall forever remain children.”
That is what I feel is happening to this Chamber. We forget our past, our history and the continuity of our constitution. There was an affirmation there that was important and required addressing.
I understand the hon. Member for Rhondda being concerned about the increased politicisation of the House of Lords, and the “gridlock”, or however he described it. I grew up in an age when the Standing Orders of the House of Lords—this was before my time in the House of Commons—were not so dissimilar from the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. They dealt with, among other things, delay. Very important it is, too. If there is such a thing as gridlock, there comes a point, as we sometimes see in the United States, when the people whom we are elected to represent grow increasingly angered that the business of government comes to a halt because horns are locked. That becomes the grounds for compromise and discussion as the route forward.
As I understand it, in the Lords a proposition has been offered to the Government to separate the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill into two parts, with one part going forward. So there were grounds for compromise. At the moment that is not acceptable to the Government and there is therefore gridlock, but there will come a time when that is unacceptable to a wider public, who want Parliament and the Government to move on.
Chris Bryant
I hoped that my words supported the very argument that the hon. Gentleman is making. I would, in addition, invoke Cato the Younger, who by speaking until dusk, made sure that Caesar did not always get his way. [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House says that that was a filibuster. Cato was right to use every tactic that he had, but the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) is right, too. The Standing Orders of the House of Lords were the same as they were in this place. The fact that now the Government always have precedence over the order and the timing of debates is one of the reasons why there is no check on the Executive at all.
Mr Shepherd
I am always encouraged when a political opponent, in the sense of someone from the other side of the House, adopts arguments that I advanced against him when he was sitting on the Front Bench on behalf of the Labour party. It is true. Now we see the conversion of the defeated. That is why we should always be mindful that our hold on government is a temporary experience, and that one day we will be sitting on the Benches on the other side of the Chamber and hoping to be able to make the reasoned arguments that can convince a wider public out there.
The sheer disengagement of some of our arguments from those by whom we are elected, and from why we are elected, is to me the most worrying development of Parliament in recent years. We have scorned the historic balance of where the people lie in this matter; that is why I support both new clauses. I have asked the whole way through our consideration of the Bill how it will strengthen the people’s hold over the House of Commons, which is their representative instrument for ensuring that public policy bears some relationship to the desires, hopes and aspirations of our society. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset for the informed, reasoned and reasonable way in which he presented his new clause. If it is put to a vote, I will vote for it, because I would like to show that there is some support in this House for the arguments it advances about temperance in respect of the House of Lords and its doings.
I am a democrat and truly believe in the representation of the people in this House, which is what I want to see. However, the basis of the argument that I have made the whole way through proceedings on the Bill is that we know that it is about the entrenchment of a temporary coalition, and we are trying to examine, and amend, the aspiration that things can somehow be rejigged. We have heard the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is sitting on the Front Bench, advance the startling proposition that the Queen could dismiss a Prime Minister for acting “improperly”. No constitutional documents in the past two centuries, and certainly not since 1867, have stated that that was a practical reality.
Mr Harper
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that I drew a distinction between certain Members of the other place and the other place in general, about which I have no complaint.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset explained very clearly the effect of his new clause 3, and he was concerned about changes to clause 1 being made using powers in the Parliament Act 1911. It is already the case—this is a subject on which I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that the Parliament Act cannot be used to push through legislation that extends the life of Parliaments. One hon. Member—I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash)—pointed out that because of the Bill’s provisions allowing the Prime Minister to vary the date of an election by up to two months in an emergency, we cannot use the Parliament Act to push this legislation through against the wishes of the upper House. However, the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset would, as the hon. Member for Rhondda said, also prevent this House from reducing the length of a Parliament without the agreement of the other place. It does not seem desirable to put that provision in place.
Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911, to which my hon. Friend’s new clause refers, sets out important rules about the relationship between this House and the other place. Those rules have been in place for some time, and the Government certainly do not intend to start changing that relationship. It is already the case that we cannot lengthen a Parliament, and given what I have said, we do not want to start changing the Parliament Act as my hon. Friend’s new clause would.
Chris Bryant
I presume that the Minister is therefore confirming that the Bill does lengthen a Parliament.
Mr Harper
Yes. The Bill sets out a five-year term, and in an emergency it would be possible for the Prime Minister to vary the length, so we cannot use the Parliament Act to enact it. That is a perfectly straightforward point. It is in the Bill; it is no great secret at all.
Mr Harper
No. It is very clear in the Bill. I do not think that the issue arose in Committee.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) also put his finger on this issue when he correctly drew attention to it in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. If my hon. Friend presses the new clause to a vote I shall ask hon. Members to oppose it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone, in speaking to new clause 5, said that the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was about perpetual coalition arrangements. It is not about fixed-term Governments, but about the length of Parliaments. All it does is take away the Prime Minister’s power to dissolve a Parliament and bring it to an end. It replaces that right with two provisions that establish no-confidence procedures, which we have already, and give Parliament the opportunity to vote for an early Dissolution.
Mr Harper
Exactly; it is a very cunning new clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone put his finger on the point that an amendment simply to take away clause 2 would have been a wrecking amendment. The power of revival is the cunning disguise in which the new clause is wrapped.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) described clause 2 as a fig leaf. I do not agree with that characterisation, but even if the House agreed with it, I am not sure that hon. Members would be as keen to remove the fig leaf as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex appeared to be. [Interruption.] No, that is what he said. He said that it was a fig leaf and that he wanted to remove it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stone seemed to establish a new doctrine in his speech. He seemed to be suggesting that all Acts of Parliament should lapse at the end of a Parliament, just in case the new Parliament is of a different complexion and its Members disagree. He said that the House should not bind its successors. It is perfectly true that the House cannot bind its successors, because each successive Parliament can repeal Acts; that is the normal way. However, it is not the normal procedure for all Acts to lapse at the end of a Parliament, just in case the new Parliament disagrees with them.
The Government hope, although they cannot bind their successors, that the public and future Parliaments will find the arrangements in the Bill acceptable and will keep them in place. Future Parliaments are, of course, at liberty to change them. However, we do not think that there should be what my hon. Friend the Member for Stone described as a sunset clause to remove the powers. If clause 2 were removed as he suggested, it would effectively give back the power to the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament at will. We have argued throughout the passage of the Bill that that would be undesirable.
Chris Bryant
Many of us believe that the Prime Minister has that power even under the Bill, because all he has to do is table a motion of no confidence in his own Government, to which the Opposition would almost always agree, and there would be a general election. Be that as it may, I am sure that the Minister argued and voted for sunset clauses in relation to control orders, which, I understand, will expire next Monday. Is the same provision not necessary in this Bill?
Mr Harper
No; the Government’s intention is to change the system so that there are fixed-term Parliaments, apart from in the two possible cases set out in the Bill. We think that that is a desirable change. If the public and future politicians agree that it is desirable, it will stand the test of time. That is what we hope for and what we have argued for.
My hon. Friends the Members for Stone and for Harwich and North Essex raised concerns about the two procedures in clause 2—motions of no confidence and motions on early elections—that allow for early elections. However, the House of Lords Constitution Committee was fairly supportive of those measures.
The Committee said that it was
“sensible for the Bill to contain some form of safety valve which would allow for an early election in circumstances such as the government losing the confidence of the Commons or where a political or economic crisis has affected the country”,
and concluded that the safety valves that we had included were appropriate. The Committee also looked at the risk of the courts intervening, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex mentioned, and concluded:
“The risk that the courts may intervene in any early dissolution of Parliament by questioning the Speaker’s certificate is very small”,
adding:
“we do not consider the risk to be sufficient to warrant a rejection of clause 2 of the Bill.”
Based on what the House of Lords Constitution Committee has said, I, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, am confident that when this House approves the Bill, as I hope it will, and it is debated in their lordships’ House, they will give it proper scrutiny, but in the end give it a fair wind and pass it. However, if my hon. Friend presses his new clause 5 to a vote, I will urge all hon. Members to reject it and to keep clause 2 as it stands.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. If you wish to press your new clause, Mr Cash, you will have an opportunity to do so later, after we debate the next group, which starts with new clause 4.
New Clause 4
Prorogation of Parliament
‘(1) Parliament can only be prorogued in accordance with this section.
(2) If the House of Commons resolves that Parliament should be prorogued, Parliament shall be prorogued at that time, or by declaration of the Speaker.
(3) The Speaker of the House of Commons shall not make such a declaration unless the House of Commons has passed a resolution directing him to do so on or before a specified date and time.
(4) Where Parliament is prorogued under subsection (2) above, the Speaker may by declaration prorogue it to an earlier or later day.
(5) The Prorogation Act 1867 is repealed.’.—(Chris Bryant.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 14, page 2, line 5, clause 2, at end insert—
‘(aa) certifying whether or not the motion specified a polling day for such an election, and if so, the day specified in that motion,’.
Amendment 15, page 2, line 24, after ‘be’, insert—
‘(a) the day specified in a motion as certified under subsection (1)(aa) above, or, if no date is specified, (b)’.
Amendment 8, page 2, line 29, clause 3, leave out ‘17th’ and insert ‘25th’.
Amendment 9, page 2, line 39, at end insert
‘within 15 working days of the polling day’.
Amendment 2, page 4, line 4, schedule, leave out ‘“or dissolve”’ and insert
‘“prorogue or dissolve Parliaments nor”’.
Amendment 3, page 4, line 6, at end insert—
‘Meeting of Parliament Act 1797 (c. 127)
2A The Meeting of Parliament Act 1797 is repealed.’.
Amendment 4, page 4, line 8, leave out
‘“or dissolved” where it occurs second’
and insert
‘“unless it should be sooner prorogued or dissolved by the Crown, anything in the Succession to the Crown Act 1707 in any way notwithstanding”.’.
Chris Bryant
I wish to speak to new clause 4 and some of the other amendments in the group, which stand in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Lord Chancellor and myself.
One of the arguments that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister, the Minister and the Deputy Leader of the House have advanced in favour of the Bill is that it surrenders a hefty part of the royal prerogative that has been enjoyed by the Prime Minister, in that the Prime Minister will no longer be able to cut and run. That is, the Prime Minister will no longer be able to determine the date of the general election or be free to run the constitution—and, in particular, the electoral timetable—according to party political advantage.
Those of us who have supported fixed-term Parliaments for some time, and who made many speeches about them before the last general election, agree that that is an important step to take. We support the idea of fixed-term Parliaments. We note that there have been several occasions in the past when Prime Ministers have been tempted to call general elections because they have had poll leads, and when they have cut and run. There have been other occasions when Prime Ministers have decided not to do so, because they were fearful of the electorate. We believe that it makes far more sense for local authorities, which have to administer elections, and for the Boundary Commission and the whole paraphernalia of electoral law to have the clarity that comes from knowing, in general, except for extraordinary circumstances, when the next general election will be.
However, one element of prerogative power that the Government are not surrendering is the prerogative power of Prorogation—I shall have to be careful with my syllables in the next section of my speech. As I am sure all hon. Members know, Prorogation is a rather abstruse element of the way in which we do our business. It is an irony that it is still true that Parliament can neither sit nor choose not to sit without the say-so of the Crown. I use the term “the Crown” because in theory it is the monarch who decides, but in practice it is the monarch in consultation with the Privy Council, which means, to all intents and purposes, the Government of the day, and therefore the Prime Minister. That is laid down in a series of different elements of our constitutional settlement, but in particular, in the power of Prorogation, which lies, fairly and squarely, solely with the Crown and the Prime Minister.
It is still true that there is no requirement that a Parliament sit—except, one could argue, in so far as the provisions in the Bill of Rights determine that no money can be granted to the Crown unless it is expressly granted by Parliament, and that Parliament therefore has to meet at least once a year to agree the estimates. Similarly, one could argue that the provisions relating to not being able to have a standing army mean that Parliament has to meet every five years. A provision also exists stating that we cannot be without a Parliament for more than three years. However, I would argue—as the Social Democratic party-Liberal alliance used to argue very forcefully—that Parliament should have a permanent existence, except during those brief moments when it is dissolved.
Of course we still support the idea of having annual Sessions of Parliament, and there needs to be a means of ending each parliamentary Session. We also need a means of dissolving Parliament before a general election. However, the amendments that we have tabled today would mean that the power to decide to sit and not to sit would lie solely in the hands of this House and not in the hands of the Government. Under the current provision, Dissolution is effected by royal proclamation under the Great Seal, and the proclamation of Dissolution sometimes follows Prorogation and sometimes follows an Adjournment. Our proposal is that that proclamation and the date on which Parliament would next sit following a general election should not be decided solely by the Prime Minister, and that they should be fixed in statute, as they are in nearly every other constitution in the world.
This is especially true if we are moving towards what are being called fixed-term Parliaments but are actually fixed general election dates. It is important that the House should always know when it is next going to sit following a general election. That is why we have tabled amendment 9, which proposes that Parliament should sit
“within 15 working days of the polling day”.
That would apply whether it is an early general election or one that takes place on a fixed date, such as May 2015—or, as we would argue, May 2014. We have used the term “working days” because that term has been used throughout the Bill. There is one tiny element in the Bill in which the Government refer simply to “days” rather than “working days”, but they refused to accept our argument on that, and our amendment to change the wording was defeated. None the less, I think that it is better to be consistent throughout the Bill in the terms that are used.
The power of Prorogation is important not only at the end of a Parliament when there is a Dissolution and a general election; it is important also at the end of a Session, in that every element of parliamentary business is suspended. There are no further sittings, and all Bills that have been commenced fall, except those that have expressly been permitted to be carried over to the next Session. As I understand it, the only other exception relates to impeachment proceedings, which are able to continue from one Session to the next.
The power to prorogue is therefore a substantial one that the Government retain. I would argue that this is particularly important in relation to this Bill because the Government could use the power inappropriately, if it were to remain solely in their hands, if there had been a vote of no confidence in them. Let us say that the Government had opposed the vote of no confidence but lost it. There is a provision in the Bill that, in the following fortnight, a new Government would have to pass a motion of confidence. However, a motion of confidence can be agreed in the House only if Parliament is sitting. If the Government had decided to prorogue Parliament, there would be no opportunity for a new one to be formed. I can perfectly easily see a set of circumstances in which a Government, having lost a vote of confidence, would want to make sure that no other Government can be formed and therefore prorogue Parliament expressly to prevent an alternative Government, thereby triggering a general election.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend is articulating a coherent case. Does he agree that if we have a new electoral system, the odds of having a hung Parliament will increase greatly and that if this Parliament did not have an opportunity to re-form a Government, that would be expressly against the wishes of the people, who had clearly voted for a hung Parliament?
Chris Bryant
I detect a bit of a difference of view between my hon. Friend and myself here. I hate to say this, but I am rather more with the Deputy Leader of the House on this issue. My hon. Friend is right in saying that if a proportional system were introduced, a succession of hung Parliaments would be more likely. Consensus would rule the day and coalition Governments would be formed on a fairly regular basis. That is not absolutely certain, as it has not happened in some countries that have proportional representation. However, the alternative vote, which I shall be voting for—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) shouts out, “Shame”, but it expressly points out in “Erskine May” that shouting “Shame” is unparliamentary. I would not want to excoriate him on that basis. I am not quite sure on which page it says that, but I am sure he will find it, if he looks for it. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. It is my job to cite that authority, not the job of the hon. Member.
Chris Bryant
I am just trying to help you out, Mr Deputy Speaker. You did say earlier that you were at the edge of your knowledge and this might not be a page you have reached in your reading of “Erskine May”.
My point was that the alternative vote system does not necessarily lead to more hung Parliaments. It depends entirely on the political climate of the day. The fact that first past the post has on this occasion delivered us a hung Parliament and that we have had coalition Governments many times over the last 140 years provides evidence that it is not first past the post that delivers a particular version of government, but how people vote in the particular circumstances.
Chris Bryant
I was referring to the use of Prorogation at the end of a parliamentary Session. I believe that that should be in the hands of this House, not in the hands of the Government. Sorry, in fact I was referring to the case where a Government might choose to use Prorogation expressly to prevent an alternative Government from being formed. The Deputy Leader of the House might reassert what the Parliamentary Secretary said earlier—that the monarch would simply sack the Prime Minister in such circumstances—but I do not believe that the monarch has such a power. In fact, since statute law would have expressly stated that that power was still there, I cannot see how that could possibly happen. Alternatively, the Deputy Leader of the House might say that the monarch would refuse to grant Prorogation. That would set the monarch directly against the Prime Minister, and in such a contest there would be a real constitutional crisis, which some would want to take to the courts because the provisions would by then have been placed in statute law.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
The hon. Gentleman is exploring an interesting argument, but there is currently nothing to prevent a Prime Minister from requesting Prorogation to avoid a vote of no confidence if he believes that the monarch will accede to his request. Given that that has never happened, why does the hon. Gentleman think that such a constitutional anomaly is more likely to arise following the passage of the Bill than under the present arrangements?
Chris Bryant
The Deputy Leader of the House has made a fair point. However, because we are now putting in statute significant elements of the way in which the British constitution might work in the future, rather than, of necessity, what exists at present, we are creating a labyrinth which Prime Ministers may well wish to navigate. I shall say more about that shortly, once I have given way to the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who is talking to a Whip at the moment.
Mark Reckless
That is very kind.
I believe that there is a recent precedent in Canada, whose Parliament—if I understand the position correctly—was prorogued for two or three months by a minority Government, against the wishes of many parliamentary parties.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman has predicted almost exactly what I was about to say. The 40th Canadian Parliament, which was elected on 14 October 2008 and opened on 18 November, was prorogued by the Governor-General almost immediately, on 4 December, at the specific request of the then Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. I do not think that there is a deliberate coincidence between his surname and that of the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office.
Mr Harper expected a motion of no confidence in his Government, and a coalition agreement was established between the various parties with the support of the Bloc Québécois. As the hon. Gentleman says, that Prorogation was quite substantial, and a second Prorogation at the end of 2009 lasted for more than two months. Many complained that it too had been arranged expressly to avoid a political inconvenience. At the time, a big row was taking place about the detention of Afghans by Canadian forces.
As the hon. Gentleman suggests, there is a real danger that Prorogation could be used in a rather more assertive and political fashion. Governments in this country have tended not to use it in such a way, partly because it means losing the business on which they have embarked and having to start it all over again. That will probably continue, but given that Select Committee reports—including reports from the Standards and Privileges Committee—also fall in such circumstances, I can easily imagine that a Government might choose to prorogue a month earlier than usual, perhaps very early in a Parliament, in order to avoid a political necessity. Interestingly, the ostensible reason given by the Canadians was the prospect of the winter Olympics in Canada. They said it was imperative that the Canadian Government should be able to get on with its business, and that Parliament should not be able to meet during the Olympics.
I think it is right for the power to cease to be wholly in the hands of the Crown, and to be in the hands of the House. I also think that we should start to clarify the knitting pattern, as it were, of this part of the constitution as it currently exists. The laws governing Prorogation hang on a series of Acts of Parliament: the Prorogation Act 1867, the Meeting of Parliament Acts 1694, 1797, 1799 and 1870, and the Parliament (Elections and Meeting) Act 1943. The thrust of all those Acts is that the monarch is entirely able to prorogue Parliament, to decide when it will next meet, and to continue to prorogue with only the safeguards of the measures that I mentioned earlier in the context of the Bill of Rights.
There is a considerable lack of clarity in regard to the process in the run-up to a general election. We know when the next general election will be, at least according to the Bill, although we still hope that their lordships may enforce their will and ensure that it takes place in 2014 rather than 2015. Indeed, I hope that a significant number of Conservatives will support the 2014 date, if only to shrug off the embrace of the Liberal Democrats. However, given that we know when the next general election is expected to be, it surely makes sense for us to rationalise the process of Prorogation.
Up to 1974, there were only two 20th-century general elections in which a Dissolution was not preceded by a Prorogation: the elections of 22 August 1922 and 31 July 1964. As I am sure Members have already spotted, both those elections took place in the summer months, during long recesses when the House stood adjourned. Adjournment, of course, follows a decision by the House, not the Government. There followed a period during which the Government decided to abandon Prorogation. There were adjournments in the summer of 1974, in 1979, in 1983 and in 1987, with no Prorogation.
By 1987, the assumption seemed to have become that the House would do without Prorogation at the end of a Parliament and before Dissolution, partly because the Royal Assent Act 1967 had allowed Royal Assent to be granted by notification rather than necessarily by Prorogation. There was, and still is, no specific need at Prorogation for Royal Assent to Acts that had not yet been referred to. In fact, in 1987 there was something of a row in the House. Mr Speaker Weatherill said that he thought it inappropriate for us to abandon Prorogation. It may be apposite to discuss that occasion this evening, given that so many Members have left the Chamber to go to a drinks party in Downing street. Incidentally, is the sun already past the yardarm? It is not yet 6 pm, and Conservatives are already drinking in Downing street. Tradition has gone by the board.
Thomas Docherty
I am sure that the fact that the Conservatives have had to resort to drink has nothing to do with last Thursday’s result in the Oldham by-election.
Chris Bryant
I do not think they are very happy. I also think that the Prime Minister may have needed to gather his troops as a result of last week’s result.
On that occasion in 1987, the Speaker and several Members, including Mr Faulds, expressed the view that one of the traditions that had developed over the years was that once a Parliament had been prorogued, Members had an opportunity to make final speeches, and the Speaker had an opportunity to bid farewell to those who would not be standing in the subsequent election. I believe that 86 were not standing again in 1987. Mr Speaker Weatherill said that he thought it was wrong for there to be no Prorogation before Dissolution, and several Members agreed. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) was the only one who believed that it would be good to get rid of Prorogations, because the whole business of Lords Commissioners doffing their caps in the House of Lords struck him as a ludicrous ceremony that should be abolished. A fair number of Members probably think that the quaintness of that moment should not simply be chucked away for the sake of it. My point is, however, that the decision on whether Prorogation should take place ought to lie in the hands of the House rather than in those of Government. I also think it is important for it to be known at that point exactly when the first sitting of the new Parliament will be.
As a result, I suspect, of Mr Speaker Weatherill’s views, Dissolution was again preceded by Prorogation in 1992, 1997, 2005 and 2010. However, in 2001 Parliament was dissolved without being prorogued, and was simply adjourned on 11 May 2001. Adjournment was, of course, a decision of the House, not the Government.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Anybody who knows me knows that my appreciation of a glass of reasonably priced white wine is second to no one’s in this House, and my appreciation of a glass of reasonably priced white wine served by the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing street is extreme, but my love for the British constitution is greater than that.
Nick Boles
The shadow Minister asks whether my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is charging for the drinks he is serving in No. 10 Downing street. In response, I would merely point out something that seems to have escaped the attention of Opposition Members.
Nick Boles
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was in danger of being wholly distracted from my point, which is that my love for the British constitution, such as it is, is greater even than my love for a glass of reasonably priced white wine served at No. 10 Downing street, and there is no part of the British constitution for which I have a greater passion than that nebulous concept of Prorogation. It is the subject of the stories that my parents read to me by my bedside when I was a child. I agree that it sounds like a sad childhood, but such it was.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made an ingenious argument about the dangers of this power remaining with the sovereign. He suggested that a Prime Minister presiding without a secure majority and having lost a vote of no confidence in this House might advise the sovereign to prorogue Parliament to avoid the possibility of Parliament passing a vote of confidence in an alternative Government and thereby bringing about an election, rather than the installation of a new Government. I am second to none in my passion for the nebulous concept of Prorogation, but I am no lawyer, unlike the hon. Gentleman.
Nick Boles
I withdraw that comment, Mr Deputy Speaker, which was almost certainly unparliamentary and banned by “Erskine May”. The hon. Gentleman said he felt he had a certain expertise in English law but not in Scottish law. I point out that my expertise in any law is equivalent to his expertise in Scottish law, so I am skating across boggy ground, if such a thing is possible.
The hon. Gentleman tried to argue that the power to prorogue should transfer to Parliament so that a Prime Minister who has lost his majority and lost the confidence of this House cannot use the power and the persuadability of the sovereign to remain in office and require an election to be called. He has an excessively colourful imagination. I understand that where no party has a clear majority in this House the role of the sovereign is to see whether a stable Government can be formed.
We saw a very good example of that after the last general election, when there was no clear result and no party had a clear majority in this House. The sovereign behaved impeccably in allowing and encouraging the parties, both the Labour party in government and the Opposition parties, to explore which arrangement was the most stable and to form the Government who had the most chance of lasting. Surely where a party in government has lost a vote of confidence in this House and no longer commands a stable majority here it would be an absolutely integral part of the sovereign’s constitutional role to invite the other party leaders to explore whether they could form a stable majority. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) frowns. I would be happy to take an intervention from him, but may I finish explaining my logic? He can then explain to me why, as so often, it is flawed.
The sovereign would invite other party leaders to see whether they could secure a stable majority and they would have those conversations even if Parliament had been prorogued. If a group of parties not then in the Government told Her Majesty—or His Majesty, on some future date—that they could form a stable Government and provided good evidence of that fact, and if the Cabinet Secretary were to advise that they were a stable Government, there is no reason why Her Majesty should not invite the leader of the parties putting together that constellation to form a Government. At that point, that leader would be the Prime Minister and could kiss hands—all of that can happen without Parliament being involved. That leader would then be the Prime Minister and would be able to “rerogue” or “unrogue”—I do not know what the correct term is—and recall Parliament, thus cancelling Prorogation, and put their Government to a vote of confidence. If they were successful, that would obviate the need for a further election. So I do not think that the logic of the argument made by the hon. Member for Rhondda holds.
Nick Boles
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) or me?
Chris Bryant
Both of you. I am quite happy to like anybody.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is completely wrong. A person from the same political party might want to take over. The no-confidence vote might apply to the Prime Minister as an individual rather than to the whole Government. I would agree with the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) were it not for the way in which the Bill is worded, because it refers to the period of 14 days—not 14 sitting days. The House could be adjourned or prorogued during that period, or it could already be prorogued. There are many different situations in which we need to seize this power back into the hands of the House rather than the Government.
Nick Boles
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has thought about this for longer, more deeply and in a more researched way than I have, as I was invited to make this speech only a relatively short time ago.
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend is right. There were moments in the previous Parliament when we all might have wished that the party in government had taken that route rather than imposing on us the rather long, drawn-out demise that we all witnessed.
Chris Bryant
Much as I like the other hon. Gentleman, whose name I do not know—[Laughter.] No, I do, but he was completely wrong. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire would be right if the Bill determined what counted as a motion of no confidence, but it does not. A motion of no confidence could be a motion of censure of an individual person. It might be tabled by the Opposition, and, if they won, they would end up unseating somebody as a party leader without unseating the Government.
Nick Boles
I have a sense that we will probably not persuade the hon. Gentleman here and now, although I have eternal optimism that we will persuade him of everything in due course.
Let me move on to the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Rhondda, which, to my mind, is as flawed—though also as ingenious—as his analysis of what he sees as the problems with the Bill. His solution is that this House, and exclusively this House, would have the power to prorogue. I believe that the House would adopt a resolution and the Speaker would then prorogue Parliament. The problem is another circumstance that the Opposition parties have talked about. When a Prime Minister with a rather small majority in this House feels, in the middle of a five-year term, that everything is going frightfully well, they might cynically decide to engineer a vote of no confidence that they would then instruct their Members to vote for in order to bring the House down, to prorogue and, more importantly, to have a further election. I have heard in earlier discussions that that vexes and worries Opposition Members and the hon. Member for Rhondda. Surely, his solution would fall prey to that ruse far more than happens under the current circumstances, when only the monarch can prorogue Parliament.
If a Prime Minister who felt that everything was going frightfully well and that if he had a quick election he could get a better majority could engineer a vote of no confidence by getting his troops to support it, surely he could engineer a resolution of the House to prorogue just as cynically, wilfully and arbitrarily. Does not the hon. Gentleman’s proposal move the power of prorogation, which currently sits in that special, rather hallowed constitutional place of being one of the few things that the sovereign does, on to the Floor of this House where it will become subject to all the machinations and swirls of this place and of ambitious Prime Ministers trying to secure a better majority?
Chris Bryant
Prime Ministers are by definition ambitious, I think—that was otiose. No. The Prime Minister, to all intents and purposes, is the Crown and the Crown, to all intents and purposes, is the Prime Minister in the exercise of prerogative powers. Secondly, there is a significant advantage in not just being able to prorogue and close Parliament by proclamation but having to come to the House to make a speech to argue for it. That is the big difference.
Nick Boles
Although I defer hugely to the hon. Gentleman’s greater understanding, he betrays a lack of a feel for how this constitution of ours works. The same criticism could be applied to some of his other amendments. The whole point of our constitution is that it is organic and flexible, and that it develops over time. Everything we do, every decision we make and every Bill we pass slightly shifts and changes the constitution. It is not a rules-based constitution but a practice-based constitution. Of course, there are rules—the Parliament Acts, the Salisbury convention and so on—but they develop and metamorphose as we use them.
Nick Boles
If I may, I would like at least to develop the argument enough for the hon. Gentleman to be able to fire it down good and proper.
Once we have passed this Bill and created five-year Parliaments and the expectation that they are the norm for this country, the constitution will have changed. The way in which the sovereign uses her powers to invite people to form Governments, to see whether they can win the confidence of this House, to prorogue and to accept advice from a Prime Minister will change. We will all make the argument that it would be profoundly unconstitutional for a Prime Minister who had just lost a vote of no confidence to abuse his power as the monarch’s sole adviser to advise her to prorogue a Parliament. It would be absolutely within the monarch’s rights to say, “I am defending the constitution. I am defending this new expectation that we should have five-year Parliaments by trying to see whether there is somebody other than this loser, who has just lost the confidence of the House, who can command a majority. That does not interfere with Parliament or government—I am in fact interpreting properly the will of the people, which is that we should have five-year terms.” I believe that the hon. Member for Rhondda thinks that these rules are unchanging and unbending and that they will not shift and metamorphose in response to the Bill.
Chris Bryant
Well, the hon. Gentleman should not, because if we extended the 17 days to 25, there would be less need to raise money because the amount that can be spent in a short election campaign is much more circumscribed than the amount that could be spent across the whole of the previous year. With a fixed-term Parliament, it should be possible to restrict the amount of money much more readily, so that is a further reason—I am glad he has added another—for him to support my amendment.
Nick Boles
I am not sure I understood that point, so, in a traditional Tory way, I am going to reject it because the hon. Gentleman said it.
The issue is whether the timetables should conform to the lower figure of 17 days or the higher figure of 25 days. My instinct, and probably that of most Government Members, is that any conformity should be to a shorter election campaign and a quicker decision. However, we must then address the issue of whether it is appropriate to determine that figure in this Bill. I believe that the Bill makes a fundamental constitutional change—to that extent I agree with those of my hon. Friends who are uncomfortable with parts of it—but that is why I support it. I want that fundamental constitutional change and I want it to remain for ever. I want it to be something that people will describe in 25 or 30 years’ time as one of the big constitutional shifts in the life of modern Britain. Because the Bill will make such a fundamental constitutional change, I do not want to hang about with all sorts of little, pernickety tidying-up exercises. I do not want to lumber the Bill with measures that might seem irrelevant in future, thereby opening the door to further amendment. I want the Bill to have as few clauses as possible—clear clauses that are based on the principled position that the timing of an election should not be up to the Prime Minister but should be a matter of rhythm and pattern defined by our constitution.
Nick Boles
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and I agree with him. If we are to have, as I hope we will, elections falling in a regular pattern, coinciding with other elections to other important democratic bodies, it seems obvious that there should be a consistent series. Otherwise, people would find it very confusing if local election campaigns had started while the parliamentary election campaign they all knew was coming had not. In such a situation, if parties put out leaflets with councillors on one side and a parliamentary candidate on the other, they might get into trouble for jumping the gun. The point he makes is absolutely right, but we should not necessarily decide here and now, in this Bill, between the proposals for 17 or 25 days, or even that the length should be 17 or 25 days. If we want to make this change, should we not think a bit harder about what the period should be? I have only thought of it on the spur of the moment, but I think I could make a very strong case for 12 days, and if someone wants to enter into a bit of a Dutch auction and say eight days, I would be happy with that too.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is wrong, because one major reason why we might want a slightly longer period is to allow people who register for a postal vote to get their vote in on time. The hon. Gentleman’s Government will be legislating for prisoners to have the vote; they will vote by post, as I understand it. In addition, as I heard him say earlier, people who live abroad—especially those in the armed forces—who vote by post would find it impossible to do so within a period of eight or 12 days. They already find it very difficult to do so within 17 days but they do manage to do so within the 25-day period for local elections.
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman is being a trifle unkind because he knew I was being a little light-hearted and frivolous; indeed he indulges himself in such behaviour. Whereas we allow him to get away with it, he has taken my light-hearted conjectures as a serious suggestion. What he has done, however, is to demonstrate the force of my argument, which is that we should have a proper discussion, separate from the Bill, about the question, “What is the right time period?”
There are many good counter-arguments; the hon. Gentleman has enumerated some of them. My sympathies for those prisoners denied their right to vote are more limited than my sympathies for the other categories of potential postal voter that he mentioned, but I am sure that those prisoners too will have their defenders. Should we not have a separate debate on a separate piece of legislation on this question—if legislation is required? Maybe it is required, but I do not think that we should be making this amendment to a Bill that needs to stand the test of time. It needs to rest as a keystone in our constitution that lasts through the ages and is not eroded by time. I hope, therefore, that everyone in the House will choose to reject the new clauses and the amendments proposed by the hon. Gentleman.
Dan Byles
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for alluding to an argument that I have heard time and again, when people suggest, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” but I shall come to the problems with the current situation in a moment. He also alludes to the interesting idea that we have a democratic system that works, so we should not amend or tinker with it. I have heard Opposition Members support that idea before. I have heard it suggested that, somehow, the Bill is undemocratic. With the greatest respect to my hon. Friends, I find that an extraordinary argument. That line of reasoning seems to suggest that the only truly democratic system is the one that has evolved in this country—the one that we currently use. Such reasoning suggests that it is not possible to amend our system without somehow making it less democratic, even though it concentrates power in the Prime Minister’s hands. The Bill will devolve the power to call a general election to the House, which is surely where it belongs.
If one were to follow that line of reasoning to its absurd conclusion, it would suggest that other western nations are somehow less democratic than ours, simply because they have democratic systems different from the one that we enjoy. In the United States Congressmen and women serve a two-year fixed term. The President serves a four-year fixed term. Senators serve six-year fixed terms. Clearly, that does not make the United States less democratic than we are simply because its system is different from ours. In France Members of the National Assembly are elected for five-year terms—the period that the Bill recommends. The President is also elected for a five-year term. The Senate is selected for a six-year term.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry, but Members of the Assemblée Nationale are elected for terms of up to five years, not fixed terms.
Dan Byles
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me. That was not my understanding, but I will bow to his superior knowledge. The French model has an interesting lesson to teach us about leaving the power to dissolve Parliament with the Executive, as opposed to the system that we are now considering. The President of France has the power to force Dissolution early, but that is not supposed to be the norm; it is supposed to be used only in an emergency. It has been used only twice in an emergency, in 1962 and 1968, but it has been used three times for political advantage—in 1981, 1988 and 1997—thus clearly demonstrating that if we leave such a power in the hands of the Executive, it will inevitably be used for party political advantage.
Chris Bryant
But when our forefathers reached that view, they pointed out that although the maximum length of a Parliament would be five years, in practice the length would nearly always be four years.
Dan Byles
The hon. Gentleman has advanced that argument before, but I am aware that another interpretation is that if a Parliament lasts five years, only about four years’ work gets done in practice, because Governments find it harder to get their business through in the final year as people are looking ahead to the next general election: in effect, the election campaign starts.
Dan Byles
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is exactly the point that I would have made.
The Bill is truly historic. That fact has been mentioned by numerous Members on both sides of the House, and to consider it in isolation—what it means to us now, rather than its place within the sweep of the history of our nation—would be wrong.
Chris Bryant
I agree that historical precedent is important, but I think the last time the monarch was involved directly in a speech made before Prorogation was 1851 or 1854, so we are going back some time. Since then there has been quite a transformation of the Prorogation system.
Chris Bryant
In 1831 the row about Dissolution and Prorogation, which was all about the proposed Great Reform Act, led to a phenomenal row in this House between the Conservatives and the Whig Government, precisely on the basis of whose decision it should be that Prorogation should proceed.
Dan Byles
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for joining our discussion of the history pertaining to Prorogation. I am glad that he has recognised that understanding the history of how we have got to where we are today is relevant to the discussion at hand. However, as the House is clearly not in the mood to discuss history today, and as I am aware that time is pressing, I want to move on and make a final point about amendment 9 before bringing my remarks to a conclusion.
Clause 3 states:
“Once Parliament dissolves, Her Majesty may issue the proclamation summoning the new Parliament which may…
(a) appoint the day for the first meeting of the new Parliament”.
Amendment 9 would add:
“within 15 working days of the polling day”.
The issue has already been discussed, but I am concerned that the amendment remains a little woolly. I question its purpose. What does a working day mean? Does that take into account religious holidays? There has already been a discussion about whether “working day” or “days” should be used. If that is an issue that the Opposition are concerned about, the term “working days” remains vague. Are bank holidays in other parts of the United Kingdom to be taken into account?
Is it not difficult to add “within 15 working days” in such specific terms, when “working days” could mean something entirely different in another part of the United Kingdom? In particular, why is Labour adamant about 15 working days? Is there any rationale or logic behind this number? Why not 14 days or 16 days? If we believe in evidence-based policy making in this place—[Interruption.] I detect some chuckling. Perhaps that is a dangerous thought. Evidence is not always welcome in this place. I have discovered that in previous debates. Perhaps when he sums up, the hon. Member for Rhondda will explain to us why 15 days is the magic number, not 14 or 16.
The House has indulged me enough. Time is pressing and there may be others who wish to speak. I thank the House for its attention.
Mr Heath
I do not dismiss the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. I understand what he is saying. However, in purely practical terms, it is difficult for the House to receive advice from any quarter on what would be an appropriate date. The House as a whole would find it difficult to take the sort of advice that the Prime Minister, as an individual, could easily assemble. In the politically charged atmosphere of a vote of no confidence, it is hard to understand—[Interruption.] Sorry, not a vote of no confidence. I could see what the hon. Member for Foyle was thinking. In the consideration of an early election, it would be even more difficult to set.
There are always technical issues in establishing the most appropriate date for a general election, and the considerations of all parts of the United Kingdom must be taken into account. I know that the hon. Gentleman has had mixed experiences, but he knows that it is the experience of the devolved Administrations that it is useful in the circumstances that have been suggested for an individual to have this responsibility. Giving it to the House as a whole would be technically difficult, without a significant advance in the arrangements being achieved.
I move on to amendment 8, which the hon. Member for Rhondda said “makes things tidy”, in the words of his valet. I am sure that it would, and I have some sympathy with his argument. The amendment would lengthen the election timetable by requiring Parliament to dissolve 25 working days before polling day, rather than 17. The Government recognise that remaking the election timetable is a complex matter that we should consider. However, it cannot be done simply by edict and without the background work.
The Electoral Commission supports the idea, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He did not make a great deal of that in his speech, but I know that he knows the background material. The commission has suggested that an extension to the electoral timetable would support participation by overseas and service voters, and better support the effective administration of elections. We agree that it is an important issue, and the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated to the commission that there is merit in exploring a change to the timetable. However, as the commission has pointed out, it would require a thorough review to ensure that any change is consistent with the arrangements for elections across the piece.
A host of practical issues and consequential complexities must be considered. We will have to form a balanced judgment on where particular milestones would best fall within an extended election timetable. For example, there might be competing views about the deadline for nominations, and we would have to work to find the most effective compromise. Another crucial milestone is the deadline for registering to vote, which, although not part of the timetable structure, is inextricable from it. That illustrates that such changes to the timetable cannot be made in isolation. As part of the process, we would need to consider the current deadlines for postal and proxy vote applications. Additionally, different elections across the UK run to different timetables and moving to 25 days in Westminster would not, of itself, generate consistency.
As I have said, the Government agree that this is an important issue and we will set out our proposals on the timetable in due course. We have held initial discussions with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators to identify points to address. It should be noted that the Bill already greatly enhances the ability of administrators and candidates to plan ahead, because we will know when general elections will happen, usually at least five years in advance. The various people involved in running elections will be able to factor that into their thinking and organisation. Even if the provisions for an early election were engaged, the Bill sets out clearly the steps from the Dissolution motion or no-confidence motion to the Dissolution of Parliament, and those steps will be conducted in the public eye. There will be no more snap elections, and I believe that electoral administrators and candidates can be glad about that.
The final reason for asking the hon. Member for Rhondda not to pursue amendment 8, despite its merit and the fact that the issue needs to be considered, is that the Bill is not the right place to amend the election timetable. The Bill is about fixing the date of the poll, not wholesale electoral reform, as we have said repeatedly. Governments are constantly urged by everyone to have focused legislation that deals with specific objects. This is just such a piece of focused legislation and I do not want to cloud the simple but constitutionally significant issue of fixing parliamentary terms with other electoral issues.
Having said that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who have tabled amendments will not press them to a vote, so that we can continue with the debate on the final group of amendments.
Chris Bryant
I note that the Prime Minister’s drinks party has clearly ended, because the whole Conservative party has gathered in the Chamber. We heard earlier that the Prime Minister had been serving reasonably priced drinks, so I hope that all hon. Members paid for them.
Simon Hart
Amendment 1 was tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who apologises for not being here in person.
I hope not to detain the House for too long. Amendment 1 is a probing amendment, which the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee agreed should be tabled to ensure that the Bill was technically sound. Clause 1(3) and (4) provide for the clock to be reset if an early general election is called, and for the date of the next scheduled general election to be shifted to four to five years after that early election. Those provisions, however, do not seem to apply to the next general election, which is scheduled to take place on 7 May 2015. The Bill seems to require an election to be held on 7 May 2015 even if an early election has been held before that date, perhaps only a few months before—although I suppose that depends on how it is interpreted. The Government have made clear their policy that the clock should be reset each time there is an early general election, and I do not suppose that they mean to make an exception for 2015.
I appreciate that the Government have already announced that the next general election will be held on 7 May 2015 and not before. Can the Minister reassure us that, in the unlikely event of an early general election during the current Parliament, the Bill as it stands would not require a further election to be held on 7 May 2015? If he cannot give that reassurance, is he prepared to accept the amendment? That would make it crystal clear that if an early election took place before May 2015, the date of the next election would be four to five years later, not in May 2015.
Chris Bryant
It is a great delight to see the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). It is always odd when constituencies contain bits of the west and bits of the south and bits of the north, all aligned with each other. May I just notify the hon. Gentleman that I shall be in his constituency on Friday evening? Now I have got that out of the way. He will be glad to know that I shall be addressing a Labour party meeting—although I am sure he will be welcome to come along if he wishes.
As for the hon. Gentleman’s argument about amendment 1, I entirely agree with him that the drafting of the Bill is deficient in this regard. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has done a remarkable piece of work in the short time it was given to do its work, and I am glad it has been able to come up with this amendment. I had worried that there was not going to be a Committee member to move it, because neither of the two Committee members whose names are attached to it is present this evening, which is a shame.
I also want to speak to amendments 10 and 11 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Lord Chancellor my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), and myself. Amendment 10 would amend clause 1 by adding that “no notice” should be
“taken of any early parliamentary general election as provided for in section 2.”
That is basically to say that, notwithstanding that there might have been an early general election, the next general election will be on the date that had already been specified.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that one of our primary objections to the Bill is that it refers to five-year Parliaments rather than four-year Parliaments, which we would prefer, we none the less subscribe to the belief that it is good for parliamentary democracy to have an expectation about when the next general election will be, and for Parliaments to be for fixed terms, especially because our broader electoral system is now analogous to that of the United States of America in that we have local elections on a four-year cycle, Assembly elections in Wales and Northern Ireland on a four-year cycle and the parliamentary elections in Scotland on a four-year cycle. We know the dates when they will take place in perpetuity into the future, so it makes sense to have the same pattern and rhythm in elections to this House. That is why we have advanced this amendment, which, in essence, would mean that we would not start the clock again. Consequently, we would know whether elections were going to coincide with certain local elections or elections for the devolved Administrations. That is a better model than the slightly haphazard manner in which we may proceed if the Bill proceeds unamended in this respect.
There is one other advantage. The Government have written to the devolved Administrations about the fact that the next general election would coincide with their elections in 2015 unless the Prime Minister brings our general election forward by two months or delays it by two months, and the Minister has written asking them whether they think it would be better to have a new power added giving them the right to delay their elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by six months. I have spoken to various Members of the Welsh Assembly, including the First Minister, and he is clear that it would be wrong suddenly to change the date of the Welsh Assembly elections because Parliament had decided that its elections were to be at a certain point in 2015, thereby either prolonging the next Welsh Assembly by six months or shortening the one thereafter by six months. Moreover, if we are deciding that the best time of the year to have elections is the first Thursday in May, it would seem wrong suddenly to decide that everyone else should have to get out of the way and have their elections in November. Also, just shunting the devolved Administrations’ elections away by a month or two months is likely to harm those elections substantially, because I do not think that voters want to come out very regularly, within a month or two of another general election.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
It is not just that it is a burden on the electorate to ask them to come out and vote twice in a short period. One of our concerns about the local government and Assembly elections that will be taking place in Northern Ireland—as well as the referendum—is that the campaigns will become blurred and people will focus less on some of them and more on others.
Chris Bryant
I think that is absolutely right, and I fear that the likely outcome of that is that most people will end up voting purely and simply according to party, rather than according to the candidate, which would be a damaging direction of travel for British democracy. We would prefer deliberately to avoid a coincidence of the Scottish Parliament elections with the general election, and we think that the best way of doing so is by having a four-year fixed-term for this Parliament and by not restarting the clock. We would thus not have constant uncertainty about the year of the general election.
Dr McCrea
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Electoral Commission has written to the Deputy Prime Minister on this issue, and the right of the devolved Administrations to lengthen the period by six months? It letter states:
“the Commission believes that there remains a clear need for…research to be carried out”—
forthwith—
“to ensure there is a robust evidence base to inform decisions about the timing of elections in 2015.”
Chris Bryant
Yes, I am aware of that and I completely agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The Government cannot just pull at individual strings of the constitutional settlement, because we will just end up unravelling the whole jumper: that is the law of unintended consequences, which we are in danger of having thrust upon us.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that four years seems to be the normal cycle. Does he agree that if the Government are intent on pushing ahead with a five-year fixed term, the natural thing to do would be to do the same thing with the cycle for the National Assembly for Wales, and change its term to five years?
Chris Bryant
I suppose it would, but I am not in favour of five-year terms. Political events change at a dramatic pace these days and a five-year term would not meet that requirement. I suspect that such an arrangement would mean that Governments both here and in the devolved Administrations would more regularly be at the fag-end of their sense of having a mandate, and a four-year provision would be much better. I am sure that we shall return to this matter on Third Reading.
I have no desire to delay the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I have made my point. In essence, it is that we believe it would be better to have a four-year fixed-term Parliament, because that would help us to avoid the elections for the devolved Administrations coinciding with the general election. We need change only one other measure to make sure that that never happens; we need to provide that we do not start the clock again when there has been an early general election. The Government’s intention is to try to make us fall into the rhythm of fixed-term Parliaments and not have lots of early general elections, and such a provision would give people an added incentive not to seek an early general election because they would know that they would then have only a short Parliament before the next general election, which would fall on the previously arranged date. Without any further do, I shall conclude and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Mr Harper
The amendments relate to the date of the election and it is worth touching on the points that a number of hon. Members have made about the coincidence of the proposed date of 7 May 2015 with the date of the devolved elections. It is worth saying, as we said in Committee, that it is entirely possible and, indeed, likely that, regardless of whether or not this Bill was introduced, the UK general election could have been held on the same day as those devolved elections if this Parliament had run for five years. In some sense, the Bill provides an opportunity, because it has highlighted and crystallised that fact at an early stage, when we have the chance to debate the consequences and do something about it.
As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, and as we discussed in Committee, I wrote to all the party leaders in the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament proposing to give their Assembly or Parliament the power to extend its term by up to six months. That was to go alongside the existing power to shorten the term by six months to provide a window of a year in which it could vary the date of the election to avoid that once-in-20-year coincidence with the Westminster election.
Mr Harper
I heard very clearly what the hon. Gentleman said in his intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda, and I was going to refer to that point anyway. Let me finish this part of my speech and I shall come on to that.
I wrote to the party leaders. They wrote back and I think it is fair to say that they were underwhelmed by the proposal to give the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to extend their term by six months to provide that one-year window. For that reason, the Government did not table an amendment on Report, as we had suggested that we might if the responses were more positive. The party leaders and Presiding Officers raised some other points, some of which the hon. Member for Rhondda has raised today, about alternatives. We are considering them and will write back to the party leaders as well as keeping the Opposition and the House informed. For the benefit of Members, I should say that copies of the letters that I have written have been placed in the Library of the House today.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the tone in which the Minister is responding to this part of the debate. For his information, his office sent me a letter by e-mail today, apparently responding to a letter I sent him on 21 December. It was in fact a letter about something completely different, so if he could arrange for the actual letter to be sent to me, I would be grateful.
Mr Harper
I replied to a letter that the hon. Gentleman sent to me. He might find—I can absolutely get him a copy—that the letter about the letter to the party leaders went to the shadow Secretary of State’s office today. I can make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets a copy directly and, as I said, I placed copies of those letters in the Library of the House.
The Electoral Commission’s letter made some sensible points about considering all the issues raised by combination. It seems to me that there are two kinds of issues: first, the practical delivery of elections—how we make the mechanics run—and, secondly, making combination easier. That is not just related to the devolved elections and those for the Westminster Parliament. The fact is that whether or not one agrees with the Government’s proposals, we are proposing elected police commissioners and some elected mayors, so there will be more elections and more of them will take place on the same day. Therefore, we need to make that easier. Another issue that came up in the debate, which is serious and valid, concerns the extent to which media coverage and so on means that two different conversations can be going on at the same time for different elections. That will obviously engage the political parties, broadcasters and people more widely.
The Electoral Commission’s suggestion is very good, but it has not taken place to date. The Government think there is some support for it, but given where we are in the timetable and given that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland wanted to consider the experience of the combined elections in Northern Ireland this year, it might be a good idea to consider what happens with the referendum and elections in May—in only a few months’ time—and use that experience to kick off some project along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) once the Government have considered the suggestions from the party leaders. That might give us a possible route forward.
Chris Bryant
The Minister referred to elected police commissioners and more directly elected mayors. Will he confirm that they will all also be on four-year terms, rather than five-year terms? If he wanted to provide a little more tidiness—I can see him smiling, because he knows how this sentence will end—he could change this five-year fixed-term Parliament to a four-year Parliament, even if he only did it for after 2015.
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady makes a good point. When the Deputy Prime Minister and I introduced the Bill, we said that a UK general election coinciding with a devolved legislature election would be qualitatively different from a referendum campaign coinciding with a devolved legislature election for the very reason that the hon. Lady says—there would be a narrative and a debate going on and there would be questions about whether the media, newspapers and broadcasters would fairly cover both parts of the debate and whether the public could therefore take properly informed decisions in both elections. We need to consider that issue with all the parties and broadcasters and see whether there are ways around it.
Let me address amendment 1, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) moved on behalf of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform. The intention of the amendment is to clarify that, in the event of an early general election—before 7 May—under subsection (1) or (2) of clause 2, the general election specified in clause 1(2) would not take place, but the Bill already makes it clear that the general election of 7 May 2015 would take place only if no intervening early general elections under the procedures in clause 2 had occurred. Clause 1 sets the date for the first scheduled general election, “subject to” clause 2—those words appear in the first subsection of the Bill’s first clause. If there were an early general election, it would replace the election of 7 May. The Select Committee has been very helpful in scrutinising the Bill and its amendments have brought about some good debates. Amendment 1 is good in that it has enabled this debate, but it is not necessary because the Bill is already clear.
Amendments 10 and 11, which the hon. Member for Rhondda spoke to, would mean that the parliamentary term following an early general election would last only for the remainder of the previously scheduled term. To use a phrase that the Committee used in its report, it would keep the clock ticking on the five years whether there was an early general election or not. There has been quite a lot of speculation among academics and others on whether that would act as a disincentive for a Government or strong Opposition to engineer an early general election because a new Government would get a term of perhaps only a few months. We did think about that, and we debated it in Committee. The flip side to that is that there is an election in which a Government get elected, perhaps with a significant majority, quickly followed by another election. That explains the Government’s choice of wording.
There is a technical problem with the amendments. An early election could take place just before the scheduled election but the scheduled election would still be held. The rules for the devolved assemblies provide a window, so that if the early election takes place very close to the scheduled election, the scheduled election does not take place. If the early election is more than six months before, the scheduled election still takes place. As the amendments are drafted, there could be an election only weeks before the scheduled election, and the scheduled election would still have to be held. That would not make a great deal of sense.
Chris Bryant
The Minister is right; that would be the eventuality. However, I think that would fly in the face of what in practice would happen politically, because some six to nine months before a general election people would choose not to bother to militate for an early general election—they would just accept that the next general election was coming. I understood that that was what the Minister was trying to achieve—fixed-term Parliaments.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman was hypothetically pessimistic earlier. Now he takes the opposite approach: he is being hypothetically optimistic. The Government’s view was that we could have that early general election and the Government could be returned with a large majority, and we think the public would expect that Government to govern.
Interestingly, the Constitution Committee in the other place agreed with the Government’s approach. Its report concludes that a newly elected Government should have a full term of office, and that the Government would present its programme to Parliament through the Queen’s Speech, which, of course, is traditionally considered to be a test of confidence. We think that in that situation the Government should have the right to carry out their programme for the full five years, and it would make little sense to ask the voters to go back to the polls when they had sent out a clear message.
I accept that that is a debatable point—we had a significant debate in Committee—but let us look at it from the public’s end of the telescope rather than our own. If we were to have an early general election, because the Government had lost a confidence vote or because there had been a general sense that we should have an early general election, it would seem a little ridiculous if the public had made a clear choice, sent a Government into office with a significant majority, and then a few months later were back doing it all over again.
I think that, on balance, the Government’s decision and the current drafting of the Bill make sense. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, on behalf of the Select Committee, to withdraw his amendment 1 and I urge the hon. Member for Rhondda, just for once, to think about whether he really wants to press amendments 10 and 11 and potentially force the British people to undergo election after election in close succession—something which neither he nor I would want to achieve.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I agree that in principle a clash of elections to the devolved Assemblies and to the House of Commons should be avoided. As I have said before in debates, there is a world of difference between the potential for confusion among voters being asked to vote for two different Parliaments that will in turn create two different Executives or Governments—a wholly more serious issue—and the coincidence of such elections with a referendum on a specific yes or no issue, as will be the case with the AV referendum and the elections this May. We have always accepted the fundamental assertion that we need to find a way around that. We have had ongoing discussions and will continue to do so with an open mind. We made the suggestion that the devolved Assemblies should have the power to shift the date of their elections by six months either before or after the general election. That has not been greeted with universal approbation, but it is none the less a sincere attempt on our part to try to find a way forward.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is being generous in giving way. Can he confirm that the provision set out in clause 1(5) will extend the maximum length of a Parliament beyond five years and that therefore it would be the longest fixed-term Parliament in the world, other than Rwanda? There is no fixed-term Parliament in the world of five years.
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has read the provisions of the Bill correctly, and I think that his point was confirmed by the Minister on Report. On the point about the coincidence of elections, Northern Ireland Office Ministers are conducting separate discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland, where the issues are slightly different. It would be inappropriate for me to prejudge the outcome of those ongoing discussions. We will of course endeavour to keep colleagues on the Opposition Benches informed.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend was asked about clause 1(5) and the length of time between general elections, but my reading of that provision is that it does not extend the life of a Parliament. Parliament will still expire after five years, but the general election has to come within two months after that if it is extended, which is a shorter period than the current maximum.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on the theology of those things. The hon. Member for Rhondda says that he is wrong, but my understanding is that the Bill is fairly clear on that point, even if it a little opaque to me on that very specific point. As my hon. Friend knows, the provisions purely address highly exceptional circumstances that arise for one reason or another, such as unforeseen emergency circumstances. Foot and mouth is an obvious recent example of where it is self-evident that an election simply could not be conducted either practically or politically. That is what we had in mind when we drafted the Bill in those terms.
In conclusion, the Government believe that fixed-term Parliaments represent a simple but absolutely fundamental change: strengthening Parliament, providing stability and moving us towards the new politics that we have all promised the people of Britain. I commend the Bill to the House.