Christopher Chope
Main Page: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)Department Debates - View all Christopher Chope's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I should like to thank the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), for its report on the Bill. The Committee has raised a number of important issues in its report that I shall seek to address one by one in my comments today.
The Bill has a single, clear purpose: to introduce fixed-term Parliaments to the United Kingdom to remove the right of a Prime Minister to seek the Dissolution of Parliament for pure political gain. This simple constitutional innovation will none the less have a profound effect because for the first time in our history the timing of general elections will not be a plaything of Governments. There will be no more feverish speculation over the date of the next election, distracting politicians from getting on with running the country. Instead everyone will know how long a Parliament can be expected to last, bringing much greater stability to our political system. Crucially, if, for some reason, there is a need for Parliament to dissolve early, that will be up to the House of Commons to decide. Everyone knows the damage that is done when a Prime Minister dithers and hesitates over the election date, keeping the country guessing. We were subjected to that pantomime in 2007. All that happens is that the political parties end up in perpetual campaign mode, making it very difficult for Parliament to function effectively. The only way to stop that ever happening again is by the reforms contained in the Bill.
As we hammer out the detail of these reforms, I hope that we are all able to keep sight of the considerable consensus that already exists on the introduction of fixed-term Parliaments. They were in my party's manifesto, they have been in Labour party manifestos since 1992, and although this was not an explicit Conservative election pledge, the Conservative manifesto did include a commitment to making the use of the royal prerogative subject to greater democratic control, ensuring that Parliament is properly involved in all big, national decisions—and there are few as big as the lifetime of Parliament and the frequency of general elections.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that during the general election campaign the present Prime Minister said he thought it was desirable that were there to be a change of Prime Minister during the course of a Parliament there should be a general election within six months? Where has that proposal gone to?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do of course recollect what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said during the general election campaign. What he said has been improved upon and superseded by this Bill. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but it has been improved upon because it gives the House the right to decide whether it wants to dissolve Parliament for any reason that it wishes. If the House decides that it does not want to continue to express confidence in a Government when a Prime Minister has changed, the Bill will give it the right to dissolve Parliament and trigger a general election.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker). I agree with much of what he had to tell the House. I also very much agree with the two brilliant speeches that we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox).
I became involved in this debate quite early on in this Parliament when I was lucky enough to be called to move the first Adjournment debate of this Parliament on 25 May on the subject of the Dissolution of Parliament. On that occasion there was a lot of ridicule of the Government in relation to the proposal for a 55% threshold and a binding motion relating to that. The Deputy Leader of the House, who is on the Front Bench now, responded to that debate and asserted that it was absolutely important to stick to the 55% commitment because it was in the manifesto, and so on.
I am delighted that the coalition had second thoughts, and I hope that it will have second thoughts about a lot of this Bill as well. But I am very concerned that a couple of things that the hon. Gentleman said on that occasion have not been borne out by tonight’s proceedings. He said that there would be a second opportunity, after the debate on the original motion, to consider the constitutional legislation. He said:
“Unlike what happened under the previous Administration, it will not be guillotined.”
We will see what happens at the end of two days of debate, but if at the end of those two days not all the amendments have been reached, the only consequence will be that it will be guillotined, and the only consequence that will flow from that is that what the hon. Gentleman said on that occasion will not be capable of delivery. I am happy to allow him to intervene on me now to put the record straight and say that if at the end of two days’ debate we have not covered all the ground, we will get extra time from the Government.
The next thing the hon. Gentleman said was that he believed that
“there is merit in listening to what people have to say about the legislation after it is published, rather than being too precipitate in moving from the motion, which will be debated…to the legislation in due course”,
and he sought to give some reassurance to the House. In response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), he went on to say:
“May I remove any view that the hon. Gentleman might have formed that I am reluctant to entertain the possibility of pre-legislative scrutiny? We have simply not determined the treatment of the Bill yet…but I hear what he says. There is a strong case for pre-legislative scrutiny, but I do not want to extend the consideration of this legislation into the following Session, because that would not be appropriate.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 147-152.]
In the light of what has been announced today, that gives us, on my understanding, about 18 months in which we can consider this Bill in detail. I am sure that the Deputy Leader of the House did not have that in mind at that stage, because this Government seem to think things up as they go along, but now he realises that there will possibly be a two-year first Session of this Parliament, would he like to intervene to assure me that as a result there will be more time to discuss this Bill?
I am particularly keen that there should be more time to discuss the interaction between the Bill and the proposed changes to the other place. If we were to have an elected Second Chamber, on what basis would we have those elections? When would they be held? How would they interact with the fixed-term Parliament arrangements that we are discussing? It seems as though, almost by design, the Government are legislating in a piecemeal fashion so that this Bill will be out of the way before we are able to ask any questions about the interaction between it and the proposals they are going to bring forward in the form of a draft Bill at the turn of the year. This is an extremely serious matter. I despair at the fact that the Government seem to think they can pull the wool over the eyes of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
This Bill is unnecessary. Why is the Prime Minister’s word that he will not go to the country until 7 May 2015 not good enough? It is certainly good enough for me; why is it not good enough for other people? As we heard in the evidence from the Clerk of the House, if there is a desire to give some sort of quasi-statutory backing to these proposals, that could easily be achieved by changing the Standing Orders of the House. The Bill challenges and undermines the historic right of this House to vote a Government out of office with a bare majority. In the Select Committee we heard evidence from Professor Blackburn, who was in favour of a simple majority in order to bring a Parliament to an end if that were the wish of the people. Why do we not trust Members of this House? Why do we not trust the people? I can remember when Ted Heath thought he was acting in his own self-interest and went to the people, and the people had a different view. That is exactly what happens if one trusts the people—why tinker with the constitution in this way?
I am very concerned about this Bill, and I am sorry that, for the second occasion in as many weeks, I will not be supporting the Government in the Lobby tonight. However, that is not a consequence of my failure to follow our manifesto—it is a consequence of the Government introducing legislation that was never in the manifesto. Indeed, in the middle of the election campaign the Prime Minister made a comment that was totally at odds with the current proposals. I could not follow what the Deputy Prime Minister said about how the Bill effectively builds on what the Prime Minister said on that occasion about having a general election within six months of a change of Prime Minister. That would be more popular and more understandable; perhaps we could make that amendment to the Bill. Instead, the Government seem to want to ensure that this Parliament continues not only for a five-year period but perhaps even for a couple of weeks beyond that. It is not justified, and it is completely over the top. In the end, this sort of behaviour by the Government—the high-handed procedural way in which they are trying to force this legislation through, and its content—will be their own undoing.
Nick Boles
One of the great champions has not been called, but he has certainly intervened many times, and we have heard from other great champions, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I thought that I would hear them make an argument for giving Parliament even more control over matters as vital to our democracy as the timing of elections, but no. We have been given an object lesson in that great phrase “looking a gift horse in the mouth”.
I just wonder what would have happened to the Government if they had come to the House with a proposal to abolish elections altogether or to abolish the role of the Speaker in deciding whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be dragged here to answer an urgent question. Imagine what our reaction would have been then. I listen to the criticism that has been made—that the proposal is somehow fragmentary and piecemeal—and I ask myself whether those critics have any education in the history of our constitution at all. I am the least historically educated person I know, but I know that this country has only ever made change fragmentarily, in a piecemeal fashion and for naked partisan political interests. We even invented an entire new Church—the leader of the Church from which we separated ourselves is about to come to this country, and we welcome him very much—just to enable our sovereign to marry somebody whom he fancied rather more than his wife at the time.
That was just the starting point for a whole generation of constitutional change, so let us not deny the value of fragmentary and piecemeal constitutional change. Let us instead take advances when we get them, and if they are in the interest of the Government proposing them, let us be grateful for the fact that that interest is so well aligned with the interest of this House.