Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Greg Knight and Edward Leigh

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

In my personal view, that is a fair point. The right hon. Gentleman has intervened at a good point, because I was about to say that our insistence on a five-year Parliament has resulted in delaying elections in the devolved Administrations. That delay was proposed because, when we had an election on the same date in Scotland, there was an unacceptable 147,000 spoiled ballot papers. I really do believe in devolution, however, and it is up to the devolved Parliaments to make that decision.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend saying not only that he is against fixed-term Parliaments but that the flexibility to go up to five years should be removed? Is he saying that, in a system in which an election could occur at any time, it should be called only within a four-year time frame?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, I am not saying that. I think we should simply go back to the old system and the Prime Minister should be able to call an election when it is appropriate. I agree, however, that if we were going to have a fixed term, a four-year one would be much more acceptable. However, we are not here to honour fixed-term Parliaments; we are here to bury them. So I would rather go back to the old system, which worked perfectly well. Interestingly, in the previous century the average length of a Parliament was four years and 10 months—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

This was the subject of a very good debate among experts in the Hansard Society. They pointed out that this Parliament will end on 28 March. We will have a record five-and-a half-week campaign and two weeks of negotiations, so we could have two months without a Government, which would be the longest time that this country in recent history has not had a Government. We could have a Belgian situation—I love the Belgians but they do not necessarily have the best sort of Government—with no Parliament and no Government.

[Sir Greg Knight]

I think my hon. Friend is factually incorrect when he says that we will not have a Government. We will have a Government, but it will not be open to scrutiny.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, that is true, but we all know—my right hon. Friend has been a Minister as have I—that the moment the election is called, civil servants do not allow Ministers to do anything. In theory, we still have Ministers in charge, but in practice we do not have a Government who can do anything. It is worrying that under this Act of Parliament we could have such a long period of, effectively, no Government.

Ministerial Statements

Debate between Greg Knight and Edward Leigh

Monday 5th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Knight]

That is a very good intervention and the hon. Gentleman underlines my point.

The Government response went on to suggest that an increase in the number of statements made and urgent questions granted means that

“there is no case for the protocol that the Committee proposes.”

I am not clear what the logic is in that response.

On enforcing the protocol, the Government repeated the assertion made in the oral and written evidence that the Procedure Committee received that the House already has a sufficient range of options to deal with cases in which statements are made outside Parliament first. The Government’s response went on to suggest that the involvement of the Standards and Privileges Committee would risk dragging that Committee into party political disputes, which they say would undermine

“the integrity of its role.”

That response does not acknowledge your role, Mr Speaker, as envisaged by the Procedure Committee, in acting as a “gatekeeper” against frivolous complaints. Under the system that we proposed, any complaint that was a mere cover for a party political row or dispute would be dealt with by you and, in my view, would never reach the Standards and Privileges Committee, which would be asked to determine only serious or complex breaches of the rules

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is said that this procedure might drag the Speaker into politics, but surely there is one way the Government can ensure that that does not happen, and that is to behave in future.

[Mr Knight]

I agree, and I must say that we are used to Mr Speaker telling us when we are out of line, so it seems to me to be a natural extension of the role of the Chair to act as gatekeeper in this process.