Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Graham Allen and Jack Straw

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

We need to do it in the next couple of years, but we do not need to do it now. If the Leader of the House were true to his word, he would at least have allowed for the 12 weeks’ pre-legislative scrutiny that his Government promised would normally take place for Bills.

[Mr Allen]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that were the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to have been given 12 weeks—I think that we have done an incredible job in two days, producing this report—many of the wrinkles that everyone concedes are in the Bill could have been smoked out? We could have heard from a lot of expert witnesses and we would have proposed ways in which a principle that appears to have the support of the whole House could have found consensus, as opposed to becoming a cause for bitterness and division.

[Mr Straw]

I accept that entirely. Constitutional legislation is always complicated and we should always seek consensus on it. I have to say—I believe Members know this—that I can think of plenty of occasions when I brought forward constitutional legislation and then had to take it away again. With the single, terrible exception of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill—for which I have already abjectly apologised as it was a dreadful piece of legislation—I have always both provided sufficient time and quite often changed proposed legislation addressing this complicated territory in the light of what was said in this House or the other place in Committee and the Chamber.

To consider why we have ended up in this situation, we have to return to a point made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) in an intervention on the Deputy Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman echoed a comment made last week by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that people might have more respect for the Government if they admitted that it was about party advantage. There would have been greater respect for the Government over the timing and abject drafting of the Bill before us if the Deputy Prime Minister had said, “Yes, we brought this forward—and the Prime Minister has stood on his head on this—because we did a deal for a variety of reasons which I shall explain. That is the price the Prime Minister paid for this bit of the deal, and we are rushing it through for internal reasons.” The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex was absolutely right to say—he can correct me if I get a single preposition in the wrong place—that the Bill smacks of gerrymandering the constitution in favour of the coalition, which is what I heard him say, and that it was legislation on the hoof. That is true. The Deputy Prime Minister should have taken his time and invited the other parties into discussion, sought the advice of the Liaison Committee and others, and come forward with a much better proposition.