Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

3rd reading
Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, who is unable to be with us this morning as she is having a briefing at the moment, I thank the noble Lord for his usual courtesy in dealing with the House and for taking this Bill through it. I also thank the Bill team for the meetings that took place. As he said, we have had scrutinised the Bill well and made one change. We have sent that back to the other place, and we will wait for it to come back to us, and then we will have further debates on that. I know my noble friend is very grateful for the co-operation we have received on the Bill going through. I sat in on many of the debates, and the other Benches were fascinating to listen to. I think we have done our job well and properly, and we await the decision of the other place. I give our thanks to the noble Lord, other Members, the officials and the team in the Labour Whips’ Office for what they did.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks. It is important that we conduct legislation in the House, and off the Floor in between the different stages, in the way we did on this Bill and I hope will do also on the Elections Bill—a much longer and more complex Bill. Indeed, we discovered on Second Reading of that Bill yesterday that abolishing the fixed terms for Parliament has knock-on effects for third-party campaigning—a point made in yesterday’s debate. We in this House often deal with the complex interdependence of different aspects of the rules that govern our democracy. There will be a rising tide of opinion inside and outside Parliament that we need to look at some of these things fairly soon together, rather than in one chunk after another. I regret to repeat—the Minister will hear it yet again—that I did agree with the part of the Conservative manifesto that said there should be a constitutional commission. I hope it will be in the next Conservative manifesto, and I hope it will be in the manifestos of other parties and that it will then happen. Having said that, I look forward with interest to how the Commons will respond to the Lords amendment, and perhaps it will return here.

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I join in thanking everybody. I have two points, one serious and one less so. One is an entirely private thought, so nobody is listening to me saying this: I hope the Commons has enough time to look at the issues that arise in relation to this Bill. The other is of particular thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who is not in his place, for reminding me of a lesson I learned when I did English language grammar—gosh, does that still exist? I was taught the auxiliary verbs “shall”, “should”, “will”, “would”, “may”, “can”, “must” and “do” and to appreciate the difference between “shall” and “must.”