Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

I just think that if you gave the House of Commons the opportunity to veto it, and the Government of the day simply could not get on with their business, which is what would probably happen, then we would have a problem. I come back to the point I made with my noble friend Lord Lansley: if you have a Government with a minority, or without a working majority, that Prime Minister may not be able to get the support of Parliament; but he or she needs it to be able to have an effective working Government.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord asked for an example of where a Prime Minister might illegitimately ask for a general election. I will give an example not a million miles away from our present circumstances. Let us suppose that 54 Conservative Members of Parliament expressed no confidence in the present Prime Minister, and there was then an election in the Conservative Party for an alternative leader, and that leader emerged. At that moment, the present Prime Minister decided that, rather than give up power, he would ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament so that there could be a general election. I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, that, in those circumstances, a majority in Parliament, which the Conservatives would have, would reject the proposal for a general election. That might be an imaginable circumstance. I am not in favour of this amendment—I would rather not have it at all—but that is a situation where I would rather that the majority in Parliament rejected the idea of an election than the Queen having to do it.