Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, not long ago the noble Lord argued quite passionately that it was too much for your Lordships to consider together the two items of the voting system for Westminster and constituency boundaries. If he is now suggesting that the alternative to piecemeal legislation would have been a more comprehensive piece of legislation dealing with those two issues and the issues of fixed-term Parliaments and House of Lords reform, he is rather contradicting the argument that he made not very long ago.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was not drawn by the somewhat mischievous question of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. Many of us hope that it will be a very long time indeed before we debate elections of any sort to the Second Chamber. When that day comes, we hope that those proposals, whatever they may be, will be seen off.

For the first time, I find myself almost wholly in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in the substance of his speech proposing the amendment. As he says, it seems quite extraordinary that, in a Bill which is supposed to be clipping the wings of the Prime Minister, we should be giving the Prime Minister such tremendous power. Unless we are to appoint a soothsayer to the Prime Minister—“Beware the Ides of March”—for the life of me, I do not see that any Prime Minister could conceivably be able to forecast so accurately that he could bring forward the date of an election by two months. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has said and as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and my noble friend Lord Norton have indicated, that should certainly be deleted from the Bill.

On the postponement of an election, one can understand that there could be a great national emergency or tragedy—one sincerely hopes that there will not be—when it would be quite improper, totally insensitive and wrong to plough ahead with a general election on a specific day. I will not rehearse the sort of things that could happen but we have talked about the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. I was one of those in the other place who strongly supported Prime Minister Blair when he came to the House and proposed that the local elections should be postponed. That was entirely right. God forbid that there should be some disaster like 9/11, but in such circumstances one understands that it would be right to postpone the date of an election.

It is important that the spirit of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Norton should be taken on board by the Government and that there should be a clear specification of the sort of circumstances. I also think it is important, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has said that such a proposal should be put to and approved by both Houses of Parliament. I was delighted that he made that point so clearly and forcefully. Of course, we shall not be voting on this tonight but I hope that my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness will be able to give us a very positive and encouraging reply. He is a man of infinite resource and he is always genial and helpful to the House, but if he could not give us a real promise on this point of significant change to the current wording in the Bill, then I think on Report there would be amendments which many of us would feel obliged to support.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I have already raised my worries about the extension power that a Prime Minister has beyond five years. On this group of amendments I am aware that there is a problem, but I am not as worried as my noble friend Lord Howarth about the Prime Minister's ability to go to the country earlier than five years. I do not mind that.

I very much worry about the two-month extension beyond the five years. It would be very reassuring if the Minister took away, for example, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and produced a schedule of possible circumstances. I know that nothing is certain—there can always be the black swan which we cannot anticipate—but if we were told under what circumstances a Prime Minister could be permitted to go to Parliament about a postponement, that would put my mind at rest.

In a sense, this power goes beyond the 1911 Act, and we should take it very seriously. I calculate that, given the current date of election in the Bill, there will be 61 days in the two-month delay; 61 is not a perfect multiple of seven, so the Prime Minister may be tempted to go for 63 days. One can go on like that. We need some idea of the circumstances in which a Prime Minister could claim.

Secondly, as the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Cormack, said, the provision should be brought to both Houses of Parliament. We have a constitutional position in this question, and it should not be left to the other place alone. I can envisage circumstances under which a Government with a two-thirds majority could arbitrarily give themselves authority to extend the election for two months. I would be very worried about that.

We should have safeguards in the Bill to make sure that both Houses are consulted, that we know the possible circumstances under which the Prime Minister can exercise the power and that we can be certain that such powers will be used only in exceptional circumstances.