Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Gilbert Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, that is an important point, but the answer is that if you legislate on the principle, as this Bill when an Act will seek to do, the electorate will be entitled to know what it is voting for at any election. Will it get a fixed-term Parliament unless the legislation is amended or repealed, or will the Government and the Prime Minister retain the right to choose when to go to the country? If the Government decide to repeal the legislation or amend it, they are likely to put that in their manifesto. On the basis of these amendments, the Government will have the right after the election to determine what the electorate has given them. That, in my respectful submission, is wrong in principle.

Furthermore, the amendments are inconsistent with the Parliament Act 1911. By that Act, the House of Commons can insist on legislation that does not extend the life of a Parliament and this does not extend the life of a Parliament, with the exception of the possible two-month extension, and we do not know what will happen to that. This House can only delay legislation. By these amendments, because of the provision for a resolution of both Houses, the power of this House would be there to deny passage to a resolution that the House of Commons wished to pass. That again is contrary to the principle and militates against these amendments.

The so-called sunrise clause in Amendment 25 would cause chaos. By way of example, under Amendment 25, the schedule would come into force only to the end of the first meeting of the next Parliament, but that schedule is the one that would repeal the Septennial Act 1715 among other things. Would that suddenly come back into force after the next election?

The amendments are understated in their presentation. They hand straight back to the Prime Minister and the Government of the day, with no need for legislation, the power to choose the timing of the next election. That is the answer to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, when she intervened on my noble friend Lord Tyler.

[Lord Gilbert]

I have listened very carefully to the noble Lord’s speech. Over and again I heard him say that the Prime Minister would have total power to choose the general election date. Has it never occurred to him that the monarch has a say in that? The noble Lord finds that funny, but I do not.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

We plainly take a different view of the constitutional arrangements. The monarch has a say in certain very limited circumstances but, by and large, in a constitutional monarchy she takes the advice of the Prime Minister and is very careful to avoid becoming embroiled in constitutional disputes of this sort.

[Lord Gilbert]

Is the noble Lord actually advancing the proposition that the monarch has no discretion whatever as to whether she actually accedes to a request for a dissolution?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

Noble Lords will have heard me say that her discretion is very limited and that she seeks to stay out of controversy of this sort where she possibly can. Plainly, sometimes, the monarch’s role is to get involved and sometimes that is unwisely exercised, as with the dismissal by Sir John Kerr of the Government of Gough Whitlam in Australia. That was not the monarch directly, but it was the monarch’s representative and that shows the danger of the monarch becoming involved. Controversy has raged ever since in Australia and elsewhere about that exercise of the royal prerogative. It is a dangerous one.

My point is that if you read these amendments carefully, a resolution of both Houses would be required for this legislation to survive beyond the first meeting after the next election. That is wrong. If Parliament wishes to change the law, it needs to pass new law to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gilbert]

Is not the danger to which the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has just referred only likely to arise if both Houses are elected? [Laughter]

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

It is very difficult to answer that question, and I will not try.

This is an important opportunity for the Government to show their sincerity in relation to the way that constitutional legislation should be done and to accept the amendments. If they do not, I will support the movers of the amendment if they put it to the vote.