Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, we had quite a substantial discussion on fixed-term Parliaments in the debate on the gracious Speech in May of last year. That discussion, I recall, was particularly difficult in the aftermath of the election, as perceptions of the coalition agreement clouded the debate on the principles of fixed-term Parliaments. It is already clear from the tenor of today’s debate that some of those difficulties remain.

Fixed-term Parliaments are not a short-term political fix but a long-term and overdue democratic reform. The idea that Parliaments should last for a fixed term is one to which the Liberal Democrats have subscribed for a very long time. It is also one which Labour supported in its general election manifesto only last year and which the Conservative Party accepted in the coalition agreement.

The Government have improved their proposal since last year, not least by dispensing with their original plan to set a threshold of only 55 per cent for the Dissolution of Parliament, which would have worked perhaps for this Parliament but not for most Parliaments. The Bill now provides for greater clarity to distinguish between votes of confidence and votes for Dissolution.

In order to have a fixed-term Parliament, there must be some form of mechanism to hold it in place. A substantial threshold for early Dissolution is clearly required. Without it, the legislation would be simply a statement of aspiration and a reiteration of the status quo whereby a Parliament lasts for five years unless a Prime Minister decides otherwise. The proposed threshold for Dissolution of the Westminster Parliament, a two-thirds majority, now closely reflects the arrangements set up by the Scotland Act 1998, introduced by the last Labour Government. Those arrangements have been shown to work very well since their introduction. Sadly, it was not a reform that the Labour Government extended to Westminster in their 13 recent years in office. However, Labour sought to rectify that in its last manifesto, in which it promised to legislate to “ensure” that there would be fixed-term Parliaments, although it did not say of what duration. I look forward to hearing from noble Lords opposite exactly how they intended to legislate to ensure that there were fixed-term Parliaments.

Labour’s pledge to legislate for fixed-term Parliaments was first made in 1992 by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, whom I am very pleased to see in his place today. In its manifesto of that year, the Labour Party criticised,

“months of on-again, off-again dithering which damaged our economy and weakened our democracy”,

after John Major delayed a much anticipated 1991 election. The Labour Party said then:

“No government with a majority should be allowed to put the interests of party above country, as the Conservatives have done”.

Labour promised fixed-term Parliaments in 1992 and again in 2010.

A fixed-term Parliament is accepted without controversy in most developed democracies—indeed, I believe that it exists in about two-thirds of democracies. It also exists for every single local authority and devolved Government here in Britain. It was introduced for all those devolved Governments during the 13 years of the Labour Government and each of them now operates a fixed-term Parliament principle. It is now the right time for the House of Commons to catch up with that principle.

I turn to the question of whether a fixed term should be of four or five years. The Government acknowledged that there is a genuine dilemma on this issue in their response to the report of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. They recognised that there is no monopoly of merit in the cases for four or for five years; it is a question of judgment. However, on balance, I am persuaded that setting the term at five years is right, because a four-year fixed term would mean Governments having a non-election-fighting life—a period of governing without immediate electoral pressures—of three years at most, which would not be sufficient.

There are other practical reasons for considering why five years is the right period. The previous Labour Government legislated in the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 for a period covering party-political expenditure that works only in a five-year Parliament. Under the Act, the pre-election campaign period for regulating party-political expenditure starts 55 months into a Parliament—in other words after, and only after, four years and seven months—and it runs for up to 60 months after the previous general election, but for no longer. A few noble Lords may recall that I opposed those provisions at the time because they would work in practice only if there was a five-year fixed-term Parliament. That is now what is proposed and it would make those regulations on party-political controlled expenditure, introduced by the last Labour Government, actually work. The campaign expenses legislation that we approved only two years ago will now work in future.

I do not wish to repeat the debate that we had recently during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—to do so would of course take a very long time—but I remind your Lordships that we approved legislation to review the constituency boundaries every five years. The first review of the constituency boundaries under the legislation that we so recently approved will be conducted by October 2013 and each subsequent review will be concluded on a five-year cycle from five years thereafter. To hold a general election in 2014, only four years after the previous one, would mean that the next general election would be fought only six months after the new constituency boundaries became known. If we have system of individual constituency representation, then that, I think, would be madness. Parties need time to find, select and promote candidates. Voters need to be able to assess them and their relative merits and to make informed choices. Even a period of 18 months between knowing the new boundaries and the general election may be too short to do this effectively, but anything less than a five-year Parliament will mean less than an 18-month period from knowing what the constituency boundaries will be to the Dissolution of Parliament and the commencement of the next general election.

[Lord Rooker]

I am interested in what the noble Lord has just said. He has made a specific and direct link between the five years in this Bill and the legislation that the House has just passed. He has done it in such a way as to suggest that basically you could outlaw any amendments for four years on the basis that the House has passed previous legislation for five years. The fact that he has made a direct connection between the two almost amounts to blackmail. If he had not said that towards the end of his remarks, I would tend to agree with most of what he said, but that direct link will be used to attack anybody who wants to move from five years to four years or four and a half years, if that is the desire. It cannot be a fair argument to use the kind of legislative trick that he has just played on us. My question to the noble Lord is this: during our Committee stage, will he be prepared to accept the good faith of those who want to promote four years or four and a half years and not suggest that they are seeking to go back and debate the previous Bill? If he will not spend time accusing people of that, I will withdraw the imputations that I have just made about his speech.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, early in my remarks I said that there is merit in the case for four years or for five years. The noble Lord should accept that and withdraw his remark that my suggestion that there are strong reasons why we should have five years rather than four years amounts to blackmail. Also, comments from a sedentary position that this sounds like blackmail are rather offensive and over the top in the circumstances of a genuine debate on this issue.

[Lord Rooker]

I apologise.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords—

[Lord Rennard]

I thank the noble Lord for that.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My remarks are exactly on this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rennard]

I want to address a couple of issues if I may. I note that the noble Baroness is due to make her remarks later on in the debate.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to an area of the Bill where I think that work is still required. The Bill rightly sets out to remove the starting pistol for an election race being held by one of its principal competitors and to implement the coalition agreement, which states:

“We will establish five-year fixed-term Parliaments”.

There is a real danger that the Bill could fail in that objective under Clause 1(5), as it effectively provides for a Prime Minister with a majority in Parliament to be able to alter the date of the general election by two months either side of the five-year norm. The coalition agreement commits to establishing five-year fixed-term Parliaments, not nearly fixed-term Parliaments of between 58 months and 62 months.

Countries such as Norway, Sweden, South Africa and the United States, along with all our local government and the devolved Assemblies established in recent years, manage to exist on a fixed-term basis without such a provision. I accept that some elections may need to be delayed in exceptional circumstances, such as the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001, but that could be dealt with in legislation relatively easily, just as the fixed-term council elections during May 2001 were postponed until June of that year. I cannot see any merit in the special power for the Prime Minister to bring forward an election. If unforeseen circumstances may conceivably delay an election by two months, how can unforeseen circumstances require an election to be brought forward by two months?

There is, however, a strong case to say that the Bill could be amended to allow a few days’ flexibility over polling day, sufficient so as not to preclude the possibility of voting taking place over a weekend. Perhaps polling day in the next general election should not be on the first Thursday in May but on the Saturday and/or Sunday following that day. There is a good case for proper consideration to be given to voting over a weekend rather than on a weekday. It would be a mistake for the Bill to preclude that possibility.

The Bill is long overdue. It was never right that one of the runners in a race also held the starting pistol and was able to fix the start of the race depending on his or her party’s convenience. The Bill sets out healthy, democratic reform to our political system. As the first Prime Minister to accept this principle, David Cameron deserves considerable credit. I also think that the Labour Party should adhere to the principle that it set out to the country in its manifesto last year. This House should support the Bill.