Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Falconer of Thoroton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott]

I am sorry, my Lords. I was sitting down thinking about having a cup of tea and suddenly realised that those were interventions on my speech.

The fundamental difference between this and the situation in the Scottish Parliament is that that document began from a blank sheet of paper—albeit a very well rehearsed blank sheet of paper. There is all the difference in the world between drawing up a new constitution and amending a constitution which has worked perfectly well. That is my answer to that question.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

This is a fascinating debate. To pick up on what my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis said, it has been mentioned before in this debate, but it is worth citing what Mr James Callaghan said in the evening after he lost the vote of no confidence. He said:

“Mr Speaker, now that the House of Commons has declared itself, we shall take our case to the country. Tomorrow I shall propose to Her Majesty that Parliament be dissolved as soon as essential business can be cleared up, and I shall then announce as soon as may be—and that will be as soon as possible—the date of Dissolution, the date of the election and the date of meeting of the new Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/3/79; col. 589.]

Under the Bill, were it to be passed in this form, Mr James Callaghan would have said, “I shall now wait for 14 days while I offer the Ulster Unionists tunnels and money, and junior ministerial posts to Mr Bruce Grocott, in the hope that they might then support me”. Should Mr James Callaghan have been of that nature, he could under the Bill have used the 14 days to bribe and cajole to produce another Labour Government with confidence and supply support from the Ulster Unionists and come back 14 days later to say, “Ha, ha! I can return with a Labour Government and I will hold on until October 1979”. We should ask ourselves: would the public have had greater confidence in Mr Callaghan if he had behaved like that or did they have much greater confidence in him immediately accepting the consequence of what was happening and going to the country?

I ask that question because the right honourable Mr Nicholas Clegg says that we are going through all these contortions apparently to increase trust in our parliamentary system, despite the fact that Mr David Laws makes it clear that that is untrue. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

[Lord Rennard]

Does not the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, recall that it was actually in the autumn of 1978 that the then Prime Minister, Mr James Callaghan, offered significant inducements to the Ulster Unionists to stave off his defeat by creating extra seats within Northern Ireland at the Westminster Parliament in order, under the existing system, to stay in office for longer? Furthermore, does not the noble and learned Lord recall that, wisely, the previous Labour Government introduced the Acts setting up the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? In the Welsh Assembly, provisions were shown to have worked well when Mr Alun Michael lost a motion of no confidence, but there was no general election for the Welsh Assembly; nor do I recall any suggestion of that from noble Lords opposite or members of the Labour Party. All that happened was merely that Alun Michael lost the motion of no confidence; he had to stand down as First Minister; Mr Rhodri Morgan became First Minister; and a new coalition Government were formed who governed Wales very satisfactorily until the next election. Is that not a good model?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

It was a very good model for Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, appears to be supporting a model under which you can lose a vote of no confidence, then have 14 days, and come back as Prime Minister. That is what this proposal does. However, that is not my point, which is, essentially, that the right answer will very much depend upon the circumstances.

It was obviously right that James Callaghan went to the country in March 1979, and it would obviously have been wrong if there had been a 14-day pause before he did so, and if the system had allowed it. Equally, when Mr Baldwin was defeated in January 1924 on an explicit motion of no confidence, and he came straight back from a general election, it was wrong for there to have been a general election. Instead, the right answer was reached and a new Government were produced. The right answer in any particular case depends upon the circumstances that apply at the time. I am sure that Mr Alun Michael giving way to Mr Rhodri Morgan was the right course there.

Why are we introducing a Bill that rigidly requires the 14-day period? Why do we not have a system whereby, if it is right to go to the country, we do so, and if it is not right to go to the country, we do not do so? The other example of a vote of no confidence that I have in mind, which is not a true example, is the vote on the conduct of the Narvik campaign in 1940, when Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister. There was criticism of the way that the Government had conducted the raid on Narvik. He won the vote—although I cannot remember whether or not it was a vote of no confidence—but a significant rebellion on the Conservative side led to Chamberlain concluding, almost certainly rightly, that he should resign as Prime Minister. Within two days, he was replaced by Mr Winston Churchill, who formed a national Government. The matter is slightly complicated by the fact that the right to hold general elections had been suspended; but even if that were not the case, the right answer at that point would almost certainly have been for Parliament to choose a national Government and to provide a new leader for the nation. The country would have completely accepted that.

The problem with the Bill is that it rigidly introduces the 14-day period. It is worth repeatedly going back to the 1979 example. The 14-day period would have allowed the Prime Minister to try to cobble together a Government that would not have had popular support and, equally, would have allowed the Opposition to enter into a bidding war with the minor parties to try to get them to support a Government, when it was obvious that the right answer was a Dissolution and a general election. This Bill has unquestionably got it wrong by saying that there has to be that 14-day period. It would have been too long in the Winston Churchill case and too long in the James Callaghan case. It is obvious that we should have gone straight to the country at those times. Who knows whether it would have been long enough in January 1924, when Labour had to make an arrangement with the Liberals—not the Liberal Democrats—to form the first Labour Government? Would that have taken 14 days or longer to concoct? It would have depended on the circumstances. Insisting rigidly on this 14-day period feels obviously like the wrong solution.

With respect to the Government, we are in this mess—it is obvious that it is a mess—because the coalition is looking for a mechanism to hold itself together, as David Laws’s book makes absolutely clear. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has the courage to shake his head. I therefore invite him to draw attention to those parts of Mr David Laws’s book with which he disagrees. I invite him to say so if this change has been introduced because the Government believe that it is the right thing to do for the country, rather than a means of holding the two parts of the coalition together.

We are where we are: we are looking at this ill thought-out Bill, which is a means of holding the two bits of the coalition together. What is the right solution? I respectfully suggest that the right solution is to give maximum flexibility so that normally, when there is a vote of no confidence, the Government should go straight to the country, as usually happens. There should not always be the need for the 14-day pause. However, there should be some mechanism so that, if it is appropriate, a new Government can be formed, as in the Baldwin example or the Winston Churchill example. That is what the Government should try to produce as part of this Bill, rather than have this 14-day period, which will lead to a 14-day pause when there is no Government, often when the country is simply waiting for nothing. Alternatively, there is the unseemly scene of a Government trying to avoid going to the country, bidding with the minor parties or their own Back-Benchers to get them back into the position where they vote in favour of a new Government, even though they are, in substance, the same as the old Government and have cobbled something together to get around the no-confidence vote.

Either—14 days of nothing or the old Government coming back as a retread new Government within the 14 days—is a very undesirable result. I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will tell me why I am wrong about both conclusions, and how the Bill deals with them. If he cannot deal with them, perhaps the answer is to go back to the drawing board and think of something that, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said, is effective in dealing with the problem at the moment—namely, the present system. A vote of no confidence normally allows for an election but is flexible enough to ensure that a Government emerge when appropriate.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, indicated in moving Amendment 34, and as was confirmed by several speakers, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, its effect would be to trigger an early general election simply by a vote of no confidence in the Government. In other words, a simple majority in the House of Commons could lead to an immediate general election. This amendment places the power to decide whether and when there should be an early general election very much in the gift of the Executive.

I shook my head when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, seemed to suggest that this was some contrivance to keep together the coalition. First, I do not believe that to be the case, and, secondly, the Bill seeks a system of fixed-term Parliaments not just for this Parliament but into the future, when it may not be the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrat party in office. It might be the Labour Party that is in office, or a combination of parties. Therefore, I wholly reject this idea that it is intended to be some quick fix. The point has been debated on a number of occasions; and the party opposite fought the last election on the policy of fixed-term Parliaments, although one sometimes would be surprised by that.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, said at Second Reading, there is a spectrum in terms of Parliaments: at one end you have complete flexibility, much as we have at the moment, as to when the Prime Minister can call an election; and at the other end you have complete rigidity. Many of the problems that have been raised would be resolved if you had complete rigidity and there were no safety valve, as I think the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House described it. I have not heard in any of our debates—either at Second Reading, in the other place or indeed in any of our Committee debates—anyone actually arguing for total rigidity. Therefore, there has to be a safety valve. In trying to devise these safety valves, we have produced one that reflects the two situations that could currently arise if there were a vote of no confidence. In addition to that, there is the safety valve of a Dissolution with a two-thirds majority. There was a view, certainly expressed around the time of the coalition agreement, that a vote of no confidence in the other place ought to have some consequence.

Perhaps I can just finish this point, which my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth raised: the problem with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is that a Dissolution would allow only for an immediate general election. However, the dual convention that exists is that after a vote of no confidence in the Government, the Prime Minister may resign and a new Administration may be formed, which happened in 1924 when the Baldwin Government were defeated and a Labour Government were then established, as was referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. Or, indeed, there could be a Dissolution, and we are saying that there would be a Dissolution if it were not possible to form another Government. We will come to the timing, but there ought at least to be some time to allow another Government to be formed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

On 1940, let me just be clear that these provisions would never have been engaged then, as Mr Chamberlain did not lose a vote. He decided to resign and the King, no doubt on the recommendation of the outgoing Prime Minister, asked Mr Churchill to form a Government. The provisions in the Bill would not have come into play.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The Minister is absolutely right in relation to that. I took the 1940 example because I felt that one has to deal with the position. Suppose that Chamberlain had lost the vote of confidence; what then would have been the position? We have to test it against that but I accept what he says: it would not have been engaged.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if I may say so, that was another worthwhile exchange. It would not be my intention to prevent the possibility of resignation. This clause could be amended fairly easily to incorporate that possibility. One would simply have to say that a parliamentary general election may also take place if the Speaker of the House issues a certificate. Against that background and against the noble and learned Lord’s undertaking to reconsider the specific drafting of the subsection, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.