Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

The previous Labour Prime Minister of course went for five years. If this legislation is passed in its current form, would a future Labour Government amend it to change back the fixed term from five years to four years?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I cannot commit a future Labour Government, but people should form their own view about whether fifth years have been good years. We should look at this in a non-partisan way. Do Mr Major or other Labour Prime Ministers in the past who have gone a fifth year fit the rubric of Professor Hazell; namely, people hanging on to the last moment and ending up in a situation where there is a pretty awful year? Four years is good, because it means that you are accountable to the electorate much more regularly. It would probably have meant three or four more general elections since 1945. Let us remember what the much revered Deputy Prime Minister told the Select Committees. He said that the reason for which these provisions were being introduced was to make politicians more accountable to the electorate. It is quite hard to see how you make politicians more accountable to the electorate by reducing the number of general elections. In those circumstances, we will vote for four years for this Parliament, for four years for the future and for the Boothroyd/Butler/Armstrong/Pannick amendment. I beg to move.

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[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment, primarily because it will give the Government a chance to reconsider a key part of the Bill. The case for a fixed term of four years is not beyond argument, although my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and many other noble Lords have made a good case for it being so. However, I agree with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said at Second Reading: whether a term should be of four or five years is in the end “a question of judgment”. That judgment should be informed by principle. I have struggled hard to find any principle advanced by the Government in favour of the Bill. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, at Second Reading seemed to base the argument primarily on precedent—on what had happened in our recent history, in several countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and so on.

However, there is a principled argument for the Government’s position. It was put forward, for example, from the Cross Benches, by the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Butler, from all their experience of serving the state over many years. It is an argument rooted in the importance of stability for the governance of this country. This is not a negligible argument, but it comes up against the argument that accountability should be paramount. That is a judgment that I support. More importantly, it is a judgment that almost all noble Lords who have so far spoken in these debates have favoured. It is overwhelmingly, as we have heard, the view of all the experts who have given evidence to both Houses of Parliament. The search for an accommodation between the principles of accountability and stability is fundamental to the constitutional arrangements of all modern democracies. The question that still has not been adequately addressed in all the parliamentary scrutiny of this legislation is: who should make the decision about how best to make that accommodation?

Today we have heard the case for greater consultation. Even if the Government did not take the decision in favour of five years quite as casually and self-interestedly as the account given by Mr David Laws MP suggests, it is still a fact that there has been no public consultation on this fundamental issue. This legislation seeks to determine the shape of future Parliaments, yet those most affected by it—the voters of this country—have not yet been asked what they think about the judgment that the Government have made. They should be asked. We have heard a great deal about the views of academic experts and politicians; what about the people we all serve? I am not in favour of referendums in general. I am certainly not in favour of a referendum on this point. However, I am in favour of the Government embarking on one of the many forms of public engagement that already exist—exercises in deliberative democracy and so on. They are available to the Government, who should now take advantage of them.

Listening to all the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, you would think they believed in the greater engagement of the public in policy formation between elections. Here is an opportunity for them to put some substance into all this airy rhetoric. If your Lordships support this amendment, I fear it will not change the Government’s mind on how long a term should be. This Government have shown very little inclination to listen to your Lordships’ House on all their measures of constitutional reform. However, the amendment will at least provide an opportunity for taking a pause. My noble friend Lord Grocott made this case persuasively at the start of this debate.

If the Government can take a pause to consult widely on measures such as NHS reform—profoundly important as they are—surely they can do the same with this important measure of constitutional reform. I hope that your Lordships will give the Government an opportunity to do so.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I set out in Committee three reasons why I felt strongly that a fixed-term Parliament of five years was more appropriate than one of four years. I shall not repeat those arguments at length. However, since I made the first argument there has been even more discussion about the principle of pre-legislative scrutiny, and there has been a considerable demand in this House and elsewhere for more pre-legislative scrutiny. A five-year fixed-term Parliament in many ways incentivises a Government to have more pre-legislative scrutiny than has previously been the case. If a Government feel that they may be in for only four years, and there was a four-year fixed-term Parliament, we would have rather less pre-legislative scrutiny than would happen if they knew they would last for five years.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who said earlier that there is a clear danger that a four-year Parliament would not provide much time in the first year for pre-legislative scrutiny, and we all know that in the last year of almost any Parliament there is perhaps more attention on campaigning than on legislating. This would mean that in a four-year fixed-term Parliament perhaps only two years would be devoted to serious legislative work. Many people believe that in the model of the United States, which has a four-year fixed-term, there are only two years of effective governing and two years of campaigning.

Secondly, I pointed out in Committee—I thought that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wills, would have said something about this—that there should be consistency in the way in which you conduct elections in terms of how you regulate constituency election expenditure. The previous Labour Government brought in rules that kick in four years and seven months after a general election and last for 60 months after the previous general election. In other words, the rules last to control expenditure at constituency level in general elections only for the final six months of a five-year Parliament. As we said in debates a year or two ago, it is not logical to have rules controlling constituency expenditure in that last six months of a five-year Parliament unless there is a five-year fixed-term Parliament.

My third argument relates to our recent debates of great controversy. However, we decided in legislation that reviews of parliamentary constituency boundaries would take place every five years. The principle of revising constituency boundaries to take into account shifting population is recognised by all parties. However, the frequency with which that takes place is the subject of some dispute. Revising constituency boundaries more frequently than every five years would have many disadvantages and would certainly be unpopular in another place. The reviews of constituency boundaries should be synchronised with general elections.

There is, however, an additional argument that points in favour of a five-year fixed term. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are about to begin five-year terms, and this is likely to become the norm for future elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. There is no appetite at all in Scotland and Wales—

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I thank the noble Lord, but it is my understanding that the five years was a facility given by this Government so that there would be no clash with other elections. Four years was the norm. The five years was an accommodation that suited this Government.

[Lord Rennard]

In response to demand from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly not to have a clash in 2015, the Government said that they would facilitate whatever was required to postpone the elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly for a five-year, rather than a four-year, term. My understanding is that that will now become the norm in Scotland and Wales, and that people in Scotland and Wales have no desire for their parliamentary and Assembly elections to coincide with Westminster elections.

A year ago, in the general election campaign, both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats said in manifestos that they wanted fixed-term Parliaments, but neither of them said for how long they should last. David Cameron said before the general election that he would seriously consider the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, but again did not say how long the period should be. So none of the three main parties specified a year ago during the general election campaign what period would be appropriate for fixed-term Parliaments.

For all the reasons I have given—the fact that there will be more pre-legislative scrutiny; we will tie in constituency election expenditure; we will tie in the boundary reviews; and we will tie in processes with the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments—I think that a fixed-term Parliament of five years is most appropriate.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Before the noble Lord sits down, I hope that he will forgive me for feeling that he might be using a slightly cynical argument. I have listened carefully, because I know how experienced he is in politics, but given that the coalition Government came in and announced that there would be a five-year term and then produced major constitutional change legislation without pre-legislative scrutiny, I find that argument hard to take. The noble Lord referred to his experience in the referendum campaign. My experience was that more people were saying, “When can we have a general election?” than even were fired up on AV. Those who claim that the number of people turning out in the referendum on AV is an indication of how strongly people feel about the Government may be wrong.

[Lord Rennard]

With great respect to the noble Baroness, I did not refer in my remarks to the events of last week in the referendum. I was simply making the point that so many people here argue for more pre-legislative scrutiny. I believe that there would be more pre-legislative scrutiny in a five-year fixed term Parliament than there would in a four-year one, because in a four-year one, the Government would be so anxious to do so much that they would not have as much pre-legislative scrutiny.

[Lord Goldsmith]

Before the noble Lord sits down, as I think that he is the first Liberal Democrat who has spoken on Report, is it his party's position that fewer general elections increases democratic accountability?

[Lord Rennard]

It is the position of my party that general elections in which people get what they vote for is the most fundamental democratic reform. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that if those people who support other systems, such as first past the post, really had the courage of their convictions, they would have allowed proportional representation to be on the ballot paper last week, as I believe that one day it will be.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, my recollection is that the noble Lord’s party voted against alternatives being put forward in the referendum alongside AV. Many of us felt very strongly that the public were being given about one-third of a question in the referendum rather than the whole question, which would have given them a choice. For the noble Lord now to claim that somehow the Liberal Democrats are in favour of the widest possible consultation is a bit hollow.

[Lord Rennard]

We are rather going off the subject of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. Briefly, I remind the noble Baroness that her party's manifesto promised a referendum on AV but no other subject. The Conservative Party promised as part of the coalition negotiations to have a referendum on AV but on no other subject. The Liberal Democrats won only 57 out of 650 seats and were therefore not in a position to insist on what we really wanted, which was a referendum on proportional representation.

[Lord Dobbs]

I have listened to this debate and the previous one with fascination. We have gone today from Herbert Asquith in 1911 to Mr Chris Huhne and Mr David Laws—and other notorious parliamentary double acts. We have been from the dog to the duck and all the way to Battersea Dogs Home. We have heard that this is a matter of high principle. Perhaps that is right. I can just imagine the scene when Mr Gordon Brown in 2007 was urged to go for an early election. Did he say, “No, Miliband. Get behind me with your temptation. It has been only two years since the last election and I must soldier on to the end as a matter of principle?”. It might have been like that, but I thought that it was my task in my other life to ask for the suspension of disbelief. Certainly it was not like that with John Major in 1996. The question then was simple; can we win in four? “No? Okay, we’ll try five”. Of course, I was not with Jim Callaghan in 1978 or Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, but I suspect that the conversations in No. 10 were along much the same lines.

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[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, as I indicated earlier, I support this suite of amendments. They are important in relation to the position of Parliament and this Bill for three reasons. First, such a series of clauses might well be appropriate in any constitutional legislation that makes a significant change. I do not think that anybody doubts that, because that is how the Government are putting it. I agree with other noble Lords who have said that this is potentially a significant constitutional change. In my respectful submission, before we commit ourselves irredeemably to this change it is sensible to see what happens. For that first reason, I support the amendments.

Secondly, we broadly know—there is no real dispute—the provenance of these constitutional changes. There is no suggestion that there is a widespread desire among constitutionalists or the public for this particular change. It is an insider’s deal in relation to politics, which suits two political parties. As far as one can see, it has no broad political support beyond the two political parties. I venture to suggest that, if the public's interest could be engaged in this and one explained to the public that we might have a situation under the Bill where the Government could be defeated on the Finance Bill, then defeated on a vote of confidence that they put down and they would still not have to have a general election—or that the Government could be defeated on a vote of no confidence put down by the Opposition and they would still not have to leave because they could spend 14 days bribing a variety of rebels and other small parties to join them, so they could hold on in Government—the public might not find this Bill worth supporting. It is an insider's Bill, which does not feel particularly attractive to me.

There is a third reason of importance. I have found in the course of these debates in the Commons and in your Lordships' House that people think that, in relation to a significant constitutional change, there should be public consultation, a desire to find consensus and pre-legislative scrutiny. Indeed, on 25 May, David Heath, the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons said that he favoured pre-legislative scrutiny for this Bill. His only concern was that such scrutiny might lead to the Bill being forced into the next Session of Parliament. Noble Lords will remember that the coalition in the Commons then extended this Session by approximately nine months thereby making it clear that there could be no clash. There was still no pre-legislative scrutiny.

Therefore, I think most people who have debated this would agree that this Bill has not gone through the appropriate procedures for a Bill of this importance constitutionally. Is there no price to be paid for this? Is Parliament to be absolutely supine in relation to this? It is a big opportunity for the coalition Government to put their money where their mouth is. They say they believe in new politics and they say they believe in reaching out for consensus; I cannot see any reason why the noble and learned Lord cannot say, on behalf of the Government, that he agrees with what has been said and that we should see whether the way that the Bill operates between now and the next election gains public support and, if it does, Parliament can form a view about whether to pass the resolution next time around. That would not cost the Government anything, because they would have the Bill they want.

[Lord Rennard]

The noble Lord is of course a very clever lawyer, so perhaps he could just explain to the House, for the purposes of clarification, how he considers supporting an amendment that says that each Parliament, after each general election, should meet to consider how long the Parliament should last, is compatible with the Labour Party manifesto commitment a year ago, which said that if the party returned to government, it would legislate for fixed-term Parliaments?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

What you do here is you have a Bill for fixed-term Parliaments, you see how it works and, if it works, you determine whether, as a Parliament, you should continue with it.