Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

Let me explain further. The Select Committee rushed through its pre-legislative scrutiny process, because of the timetable for the publication of the Bill, Second Reading and Committee. Inevitably, the Select Committee had to take evidence and consider matters quickly and briefly. It is important that the issues considered by the Select Committee are put before the Committee. I have every confidence that the Minister will assure the Committee in due course that he and his colleagues have considered all the points made in the pre-legislative scrutiny report by the Select Committee.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

This is not about subsection (2)(b). If it would assist the hon. Lady in arguing against her own amendment, does she recognise that other amendments that she has tabled, such as amendment 37, if accepted, would create a serious problem in relation to amendment 33? That rests on the Prime Minister discharging a particular function, whereas under amendment 37 there could be circumstances in which there was no Prime Minister to discharge that function.

[Mrs Laing]

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is right. We will debate amendment 37 in the next group, and I am sure I will be called to order if I go into the details of it at this point.

Once again, I am not seeking, and the Select Committee was not seeking, to put forward a coherent succession of amendments in an attempt to change the Bill. I want to make sure that the Committee has an opportunity, as it has now had, to consider the issues of exclusive cognisance and the way in which the Standing Orders of the House will be affected by the Bill. That is why I hope the Committee’s Chairman will excuse my arguing against myself, while putting the points that the Select Committee wished to make here. It is important that the results of the pre-legislative scrutiny that we undertook should be put before the Committee.

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[Mr Cash]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is extremely sensible and full of common sense, which is what this Bill lacks. This is about something else; it is not about the manner in which our democratic system functions. It is about something completely different and I will come to that in a moment.

[Mark Durkan]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that his case against the idea of a special weighted majority for Dissolution in this House would be more credible if he had not previously proposed amendments to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that required a threshold of support for any referendum on the alternative vote? He supported other amendments as well, which required not just a threshold that related to those who voted, but to the total number on the electorate. Is there not some hypocrisy in the argument he makes today?

[Mr Cash]

I am more than delighted to reply to the hon. Gentleman. Sparring with him always causes me great amusement. As for what he says, there is a substantial difference. The threshold amendment that I moved on the other Bill was to do with the threshold of a number of people who would participate in the election, and not what was going on in this House. It was not even related to the question of the threshold of those who voted yes, as in the Scotland Act 1998 and the amendment of George Cunningham, the then Member for Finsbury and Islington, so there is a significant difference. I am talking about the trust that is given to us in this House and the manner in which we discharge it.

The coalition originally proposed 55%, but that was so manifestly absurd that the coalition agreement was then torn up and the figure was replaced with two thirds. If not 55%, why two thirds? The Scottish Parliament—I am using this analogy because it has already been raised, but I think that it is completely irrelevant—does not form Her Majesty’s Government. Decisions in time of war, a Finance Bill or any of the other great levers of power are determined, and will continue to be determined, by the United Kingdom Parliament. One such great exercise of power at a most important time was the confidence motion of 10 May 1940, which was passed, as it happened, by the Government, and it led to the demise of Neville Chamberlain’s Government, because everyone knew he had to go. I do not regard the Scottish parliamentary experience as relevant. If not two thirds, why not 75%, 60% or any other number that Harry Potter’s wand might conjure out of thin air?

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[Mr Shepherd]

I like the young new Member vigorously advancing an argument that I find so convincing.

The measure is not appropriate for a serious democracy. Clause 2, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said, is an endeavour to entrench. It is as simple as that. We cannot ignore a wider picture of what is going on. At this moment, loyal and good dinner guests of those who run my party are marching into the Lords to take their place. Their doing so means that when the Bill comes to be voted on—remember, the other House that has to deal with that is the Lords—the numbers able to vote on it in the Lords in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat interest will have increased exponentially.

Overall, the Bill—clause 2, the other clauses, the Speaker’s certificate, the idea of a registered leader of a registered party and so on—is, if not humbug, then designed to defeat the very purposes that most of us in the House want: an open, democratic House. I know that this is difficult in politics, but my Conservative colleagues should listen, understand and think about the 200 very new Members in the House who are going to change a constitution without any reference point other than party loyalty. Party loyalty to what? No mandate? They are going to march blindly through the Lobby at the behest of the concept of party, when in a coalition that is a very different matter.

I shall certainly vote for amendment 4, and I hope there will be many who take that course.

[Mark Durkan]

Many valid arguments have been made about this group of amendments by a number of right hon. and hon. Members. I have total sympathy with the cynicism that has been expressed about some of the devices in the Bill and the motives for them.

However, I believe totally in the idea of a fixed-term Parliament and have supported amendments that clearly stated “fixed term”, although I believe that the term should be four years, rather than five. I have to ask myself, as all of us as legislators and members of the Committee must ask ourselves, if we do not like the present provisions, what is our alternative that would mean that we have credibly passed a Bill for fixed-term Parliaments? That is where I part company and cease to be persuaded by some of the arguments that I hear in respect of some of the amendments.

With reference to cynicism about the motives, a number of hon. Members have articulated the basic nature of the Bill. It is the means by which the two coalition parties have created a statutory harness to keep them together for this Parliament. It is, in essence, a fixed this-Parliament Bill, rather than a Fixed-term Parliament Bill. It is designed to solve the conundrum of either party collapsing the coalition. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is for fixing future elections. This Bill is about fixing this Parliament.

If I want the Bill to be a Fixed-term Parliament Bill, I have to be judicious about its content and any amendments that I might support. That is why I have some questions about some of the amendments that have been so articulately presented today.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) presented amendment 33 with a white flag and in a very novel way, which just goes to show that it is entirely possible for people to present themselves in all sorts of ways in the House. People say that a Government would not use or exploit in any way a no confidence motion against themselves, but any available device will be used in any particular circumstances. That is the nature of politics.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke to amendment 21 and made a strong case for an “immediate” as opposed to an “early” general election. The only problem is that if “immediate” can mean only six weeks, as he said to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), what happens if, for example, we are close to Christmas—perhaps the middle of November—notwithstanding that allowances will be made for holidays? If we are truly to take account of media coverage and other activities during that time, is it credible to confine ourselves to six weeks and six weeks only? Clause 2 as it stands allows for consensus in the House on the need to bring forward considerably the due date for an election, and people might do so conscious of current and pending events.

Another hon. Member mentioned the situation in Dublin at the minute, and many people would say that, although confirmation of an early election there has helped to clear the political air, going for an immediate election might cause more market turmoil not just for Ireland, but for others. There are times when we need to leave ourselves and this House the room to make a distinction between “early” and “immediate”.

[Mr Cash]

I am well aware that the hon. Gentleman is pretty close to and talks frequently with those in southern Ireland and in the Dail, but I doubt whether the Dail or the people of Ireland would be particularly enthusiastic at this moment, when the Government are in coalition with the Greens, to have such a provision imposed upon them. I suspect that, if the idea were suggested, it would lead to serious disturbances in Ireland, and I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman raises some wider questions, and you, Mr Hoyle, have said that the next group of amendments deals with confidence, but this debate has strayed well on to that ground and conflated the two issues of whether the House, by a weighted majority, calls for an early election or whether it passes a motion of no confidence in the Government.

In 1994, the Government changed in the Dail. The Labour party left its coalition with Fianna Fail, supported a motion of no confidence in the then Taoiseach and reappeared in a new coalition with Fine Gael and the then Democratic Left. In that situation, as in the Bill before us, provision has been made for a Government to change—a new Government to be constituted—in the lifetime of a Parliament, and in 1994 the people of Ireland settled quite happily for that.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend does not like my “immediate” provision, but I shall suggest one reason why he is wrong. The Bill, if unamended, means that Her Majesty by royal proclamation under the Great Seal, after conferring presumably with the Privy Council, determines the date of the general election, but that in essence is down to the Prime Minister. Surely, if the whole point is to take that power away from the Crown and to place it here in Parliament, there should be provision for an “immediate” general election.

[Mark Durkan]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about trying to remove powers from the Prime Minister, but I am not sure that all the amendments that he supports would do that. I think that, in a fairly effective way, the powers would remain pretty heavily with the Executive.

I am not fully persuaded of the case for the amendment. I fully accept the argument that it would bring some clarity and put some control in the hands of the House. However, there could well be good, logical reasons for having an election that occurred to people at the time, possibly well in advance of a due election date. There could be political difficulties in one of the devolved regions that are leading to elections there, or particular market issues, or all sorts of crises in Europe—although I do not want to excite the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) with that prospect. A variety of reasons could create a coincidence of interest across a number of parties from a number of places to say, “We’ll have an early election”, and a date could be set without necessarily having to do it in crisis mode for six weeks hence.

The beauty of a fixed-term Parliament is meant to be that, because we all know the dates, we do not create uncertainty and have political rushes and get all sorts of brinkmanship games being played. However, if this House is to have the power to dissolve early, it can have that power but not necessarily the power to do it immediately. It can have the power to give due notice that the date is being brought forward but without waiting until just six weeks beforehand. If there is merit in a fixed-term Parliament, there is also merit in leaving this House the opportunity to bring forward a date other than just by a vote six weeks beforehand, because that would create surprise and difficulties and a sense of crisis. I fully accept that the terms of the clause are not fully adequate: the hon. Member for Rhondda is absolutely right about that. We do not have a complete or adequate provision on fixed-term arrangements.

Amendment 4 would remove the requirement for a two-thirds majority. I accept the argument made by many hon. Members that that is a very high threshold. I do not agree that it should be two thirds of all Members regardless of whether they are voting. If we are going to set any majority, or any weighted majority, it should comprise those who are present and voting, so I do not accept the Bill as it stands. However, I cannot just simply go along with the argument that says that there should not be any sort of weighted majority, because then we are not sure what proof we are providing against anybody abusing the numbers in this House to dissolve Parliament early. Other hon. Members have referred to the powers of the Prime Minister and the powers that are exercised through party machinery—the Whips, and so on. Leaving the calling of an early election to a simple majority that can be activated to call an election within six weeks means that huge power remains in the hands of the Prime Minister.

[Mr George Howarth]

Does my hon. Friend accept that being a Member of this place carries with it not only a lot of privileges but a lot of responsibilities, and that if we can achieve a simple majority, that would mean that more than half the Members of the House of Commons—people who have been sent here to exercise their judgment—had reached the conclusion that the time was right for a general election? I cannot for the life of me see why he finds that a difficult concept.

[Mark Durkan]

I believe in the idea of a fixed-term Parliament. I am therefore not comfortable with the idea that, yes, we have fixed-term Parliaments, but that at any time a simple majority can call an election for six weeks hence. That is what I am being asked to vote for as an alternative to what is provided for in the Bill. The Bill is not perfect, and it is badly motivated—I am as cynical as anybody else about that—but I have to be judicious and logical about what I would provide in its stead.

There is an old joke about somebody going into the two-hour dry cleaners and being told, “Come back on Tuesday.” They say, “What do you mean, come back on Tuesday? It says ‘Two-hour dry cleaners’ outside.” Then they are told, “That’s just the name of the shop.” That is exactly what we have with this Bill. People say that they want a fixed-term Parliament, but they also want a Bill that means that it will not, in effect, be fixed, because a simple vote at any time can dissolve it—and who is going to be moving those votes and pulling the strings of the Whips behind the scenes? We must remember that at any time, it will be possible for people to force an election by using a simple majority to force through a vote of no confidence in the Government. If there is not a vote of confidence in an alternative Government within 14 days, there will be an election. If people want the means to force an election, that route exists.

However, it is fair and reasonable also to give the House the power to change the date of an election for reasons that are not particularly partisan, that are mature, responsible and well thought through and that can be justified in light of existing circumstances and forthcoming events. The House should be able to say, “We have a fixed-term Parliament, but we are giving all sides ample notice that we will be moving the date.” That would not be a matter of artifice or brinkmanship. If the House is being offered such a responsible, mature power that it could use with responsibility aforethought, I find it bizarre that Members are trying to twist and turn to find reasons not to take it.

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[Mr Chope]

I am against the Bill because of the lack of flexibility in it. From what the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has just been telling us, I think he agrees that if we have a fixed-term Parliament, a lack of flexibility is inevitable. He said that in the current constitutional and financial crisis in Ireland it is reasonable that its Parliament should be able to call what he described as an early general election rather than an immediate one.

However, the consequence of the Bill will be that if we had a constitutional and financial crisis in this country similar to the one besetting the Irish people—God forbid that that should happen—the hon. Gentleman or I might ask my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister whether he intended to call an early general election so that the people could have their say. Under the terms of the Bill, the Prime Minister would turn around and say to me or the hon. Gentleman, “I am sorry, but I don’t have the power to call a general election now. The only way I can engineer one is for you to put down a motion of no confidence in me, with the humiliation that it would involve, or for me to try to get a two-thirds majority in the House to facilitate it.” The Prime Minister would lose the right to call an election. The Minister seems to think that is a good idea, but I do not. I trust the Prime Minister’s judgment on such issues, and I think we should trust the people and let them decide.

When our good friend Edward Heath was Prime Minister, he decided to call an early general election to deal with the miners’ strike. The people reached their verdict. Basically, they said, “We think that you have proved yourself unworthy to remain in office.” The fact that a Prime Minister calls an early general election does not necessarily mean that they are going to win it. Whether they win or not is a matter for the people.

If there was a financial or constitutional crisis, such as the one in Dublin, a reasonable Prime Minister—I should like to think of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister as a reasonable man—would say, “In the light of what has happened, we should call a general election. We should call it now. We should not have to have a contrived vote in the House of Commons. I wish to go to the Queen and ask her to exercise her prerogative to call an immediate general election.”

[Mark Durkan]

In Dublin, a budget needs to be passed and then people can make a legitimate judgment. The imperative is to get a budget passed to create some economic and financial stability to boost confidence in the wider markets—not just for the Irish economy but for other economies both inside and outside the eurozone that will be under pressure. There will be an election in late January and that is known, but at least the Dail has the opportunity to pass a budget.

[Mr Chope]

I will not get involved in the detail of what is happening in Ireland at the moment. If a similar situation were to happen in this country, people might well turn to their Members of Parliament and say, “Why should we trust this Government to pass another Budget when it has made such a Horlicks of the current arrangements? Why don’t we elect a new Parliament and a new Government to deal with the crisis?”

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[Chris Bryant]

Because the legislation is changing that provision in two regards, one of which is the subject of an amendment in this group. The Government—I think rightly—want to say that after a motion of no confidence, there could be two weeks during which the House could, if it wanted, pass a motion of confidence in either the same Government, presumably, or another Government, with either the same Prime Minister or a different Prime Minister, with a different set of ministerial colleagues. That is a change from the situation thus far. There are those who want to remove that two-week element from the Bill. We on the Labour Benches disagree with them, so we will not be supporting that amendment.

There were two occasions, on 11 March 1976 and 20 July 1977, when the motion “That this House do now adjourn” was declared by the then Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition to be a motion of no confidence, first by Harold Wilson and then by Mrs Thatcher, now Baroness Thatcher. On occasion, the mere involvement of the Prime Minister, by turning up at the Dispatch Box to defend a particular motion or piece of legislation, has effectively turned it into a motion of confidence, and that has transpired during the debate. As we are abolishing the Prime Minister’s right to dissolve Parliament and placing that right in the hands of Parliament—we are putting that in statute—it would be better to state in the Bill, in clear language, precisely what constitutes a motion of no confidence, so that there can be no doubt.

I say that for several reasons. First, it would remove the Prime Minister’s power to force legislation through by calling it a matter of confidence. Perhaps Members on the Government Benches have not got used to this yet, but when we were in government, it was a fairly common occurrence whenever there was a difficult piece of legislation—whether on trade unions, the war in Iraq or whatever—for the Prime Minister to say, not necessarily in public but certainly in private, that it was a matter of confidence. That has led to some bad legislation in the past, which was certainly not helpful to us, and I am sure that there will be plenty of moments like that coming along for Government Members.

[Mark Durkan]

Just to reinforce the hon. Gentleman’s argument, a case in point when legislation was forced through with the threat that it would be treated as a confidence issue was the Counter-Terrorism Bill allowing for 42-day detention. The then Prime Minister made it clear in his pleadings to me that it would be treated as a confidence motion. He said, “Do you want an election? If you turn up and vote against, there will be an election.” He tried threatening me and his Back-Bench colleagues with an election, precisely abusing the notion of a confidence motion, which is why amendment 25, which the hon. Gentleman has tabled, is so good.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. He is absolutely right. However, I must confess to the Committee that Prime Ministers rarely said that to me personally, because I was too ludicrously loyal. Almost before the Prime Minister had even thought that a vote might be difficult, I had already decided I would be supportive. In fact, I rarely got to see the Prime Minister for that very reason. I would therefore advise Government Members that if they want to see the Prime Minister on a regular basis, they should start wondering whether they will support Government provisions. However, the serious point is that the freedom of individual Back Benchers will be tethered, because they will constantly be persuaded by the argument, “You don’t want a general election, do you? You must support this piece of legislation, because otherwise I’m going to call it a motion of no confidence.”

The second reason touches on an important element, on which the Minister got into difficult waters—I know that he does not think that he did, but others of us do, and I think that the courts will feel that too. He said that it would be for the Speaker to decide and to announce before any debate what counts as a motion of confidence or, presumably, a motion of no confidence. A minor point is whether a motion of confidence will count as a motion of no confidence if it is not carried. In the past it has, but I am not sure whether the Government intend that.

It would be wholly inappropriate for the Chair to say at the beginning of, for example, a Budget debate that if the House does not carry the Budget and if the Finance Bill falls on Second Reading or Third Reading that would be a motion of confidence in the Government, so he would issue a certificate. The Minister was sighing but is now smiling, and we prefer the smiling. I accept that in that example I am imagining what might happen, but I am more concerned what would happen if hon. Members chose to ask the Speaker whether a motion of censure counted as a motion of confidence. As I understand it, the Minister is saying that the Speaker would be required to adjudicate on whether it was a motion of no confidence. That would be wholly inappropriate, particularly at a time of political uncertainty and high drama, because the Speaker would lose his or her impartiality and be drawn into the political mêlée, and that would be wrong.

Amendment 5 would remove the two-week provision for a new Government to be formed on the basis of a confidence motion. We may have to return to some of these issues on Report, and I would be grateful if the Minister will clarify whether, if that second motion fell, there could then be a subsequent two weeks. We quite like the provision for two weeks—it seems sensible if an alternative coalition or Government could be formed. I see some hon. Members casting a wry glance as though I am eyeing up the Liberal Democrats. We are not getting on very well with the Liberal Democrats at the moment, so I do not think he needs to worry about that, but obviously if the offer is on the table, we will take it.

Amendment 22 is a minor one, and I would be interested in the Government’s view. The clause refers to the provision of 14 days being allowed after a motion of no confidence. We have suggested that it should be 10 working days simply because all other references in the Bill are to working days. I suppose it is possible that the period could coincide with a royal wedding, a day of thanksgiving, a bank holiday, Easter or Christmas, and it would seem to be sensible to specify working days instead of days.

However, we have not moved to the suggestion in other Committees of 10 sitting days, because if the House were adjourned, there would be a specific problem. I hope that the Minister will say what he thinks should happen if the House had been adjourned for a recess—for example, the day after a motion of no confidence. Should there be a requirement for the Government to bring the House back, and should there be a specific provision for the Speaker to be able to require the House to be recalled within the two weeks? We will come to Prorogation later.

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[Mrs Laing]

Yes, the shadow Minister is correct. I am sure the Minister will have very good responses to these questions when he replies, but it is important that the House addresses them, and that is why the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has tabled these amendments as a result of its pre-legislative scrutiny report.

Amendment 36 would, in essence, encourage the incumbent Government to keep the House sitting, and not use the prerogative power of prorogation for purposes for which it should not be used.

Amendment 37 reflects the Committee’s findings that the Bill still leaves to unwritten convention the requirement that a Government should resign if they lose the confidence of the House. The Deputy Prime Minister said to the House in July this year that the Bill would

“strengthen the power of this House to throw out a Government through a motion of no confidence”—[Official Report, 5 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 32.]

However, although that might have been the Deputy Prime Minister’s intention, the Bill does not do that. Amendment 37 would require the Prime Minister to resign within seven days of a motion of no confidence being passed, and to advise the Queen to appoint a new Prime Minister who had the best chance of securing the House’s confidence.

The Government’s response to the Committee’s report appears to show that they do not intend that an incumbent Government faced with a successful vote of no confidence should be required to resign. The response states:

“A Government is able now, and would be able under the Bill, to remain in office after a no confidence motion and contest a general election.”

That is a very serious state of affairs. The Committee carefully examined the consequences of the Bill before putting that in its report, but the fact is that the Bill will allow a Government to remain in office after a no confidence motion and to contest a general election.

That raises a number of constitutional questions, and I wish to put four to the Minister. First, do the Government intend that the incumbent Government should be able to force an early general election following a vote of no confidence even where an alternative Government with a potential majority in the House are clearly waiting in the wings?

My second question relates to a matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) referred to: have the Government considered that an incumbent Government might engineer a vote of no confidence in themselves, requiring only a simple majority, and then simply sit it out for two weeks to force an early general election? Once again, although I have every confidence that the current Government and the Minister at the Dispatch Box would not behaviour dishonourably, the Bill gives a future Government the power to do that.

As I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, some Members of the Canadian Parliament raised this issue at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference held here last week. There is a constitutional difficulty in Canada at the moment, because more than one vote of confidence has been held at the instigation of the Government. My hon. Friend said that he is not particularly interested in examples from other countries, and I agree that just because something happens in Canada does not mean that it will happen here. However, Canada’s constitution and Government are constructed similarly to ours and we ought to learn lessons or at least look at the warning signs from a place whose legislature is so similar.

Thirdly, have the Government considered that an incumbent Prime Minister whose party has narrowly lost a general election might refuse to resign and instead choose to face the House of Commons, as Stanley Baldwin did in January 1924—the shadow Minister referred to that—and as the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) could, in theory, have done this May? A vote of no confidence in those circumstances would give the incumbent Prime Minister the choice of either resigning or forcing another general election.

An incumbent Prime Minister would not be able to exercise that choice at the moment, because the convention is that the monarch, under her existing prerogative powers, would almost certainly not agree to dissolve Parliament so soon after an election where there was a viable alternative Government. Nevertheless, the Bill, as drafted, would leave the question open, and it is our duty as a Parliament not to put the monarch under pressure to make a decision; we should never have a situation where the monarch has to exercise her prerogative power in order to keep the incumbent Prime Minister in line, as it were.

This is another matter that could easily be dealt with by amendment 37, which states:

“Where the House of Commons passes a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government, the Prime Minister shall tender his resignation to Her Majesty within a period of seven days of the motion being passed.”

The amendment is quite simple and, again, is not intended to run a coach and horses through the Bill—far from it. As I have said on many occasions, I support the Bill and I want it to go through, because it is necessary for the stability of the Government and of the coalition at a time when we need stability. What the Select Committee is trying to do through these amendments is simply assist the Government to improve the Bill.

My final question to the Minister is on how the Bill strengthens the power of the House to throw out a Government by a motion of no confidence. The Select Committee considered that question as carefully as we could in the time given for pre-legislative scrutiny and there is a general opinion that the Bill does not strengthen the power of the House to throw out a Government on a motion of no confidence. I would argue, however, that the House has at present a pretty good power that it can exercise to throw out a Government on a motion of no confidence. I do not believe that the Bill strengthens that position and the Deputy Prime Minister ought not to say that it does when it does not.

[Mark Durkan]

With the exception of amendment 5, the amendments basically try to make the Bill more complete and more cogent by ensuring that there is less ambiguity about convention. That is particularly the case with amendment 25, which would remove from the Prime Minister and the Whips the ability to whisper confidence and no confidence in people’s ears, to play the question like a joker that is wild and to use it in relation to any issue that is uncomfortable for the Government or on which Back Benchers are exercising their consciences and discretion.

I gave the example in an intervention earlier of the way in which that process was used with the then Counter-Terrorism Bill. Labour MPs who had said that they would vote in good conscience against 42-day detention were prevailed on with the threat of its being a matter of confidence or no confidence. The then Prime Minister said to me that he would not even table a motion of no confidence if he lost that vote, but that he would deem it to be a vote of no confidence and would go straight away. In the first conversation, he said that the vote would have been followed by a no confidence motion but later on, he said that he would not even bother with a no confidence motion and would go straight to an election. I know that that threat brought some Back Benchers into line and they voted against their consciences and against their stated intentions.

If we are serious about altering the balance of the powers in the hands of the Executive and the Whips, we should support amendment 25, which states that a no confidence motion for the purposes of the Bill must explicitly be a no confidence motion in either the Prime Minister or the Government. Making it clear and explicit in those terms removes the ambiguity and bullying element and restores clarity.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) has made strong arguments for amendments 36 and 37. They would remove possible ambiguity and abuse as well as a lot of confusion and speculation that might arise about otherwise serious circumstances. I commend all those amendments to the Committee.

Another virtue of amendment 25 is that it would go some way to mitigating many of the concerns about the Speaker’s certificate and the challenges and questions that might be raised about it, which are legitimately the subject of subsequent amendments. Because I care for the issues raised by those subsequent amendments, I would make the point that amendment 25 is relevant in containing the problems with the Speaker’s certificate that they aim to address.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

As a new Member, I think that many of the public will be quite puzzled by some of the matters that are being discussed and will probably be quite surprised that there was such a lack of clarity about what a matter of confidence is. Given that the question of confidence in a Government is fundamental, as was expressed eloquently earlier by many speakers, it is very important that we get this right.

I have not been through some of the experiences that others clearly have, but I have heard them talk about them and it seems wrong that such a question should be used as a sword of Damocles over Members who might have legitimate views about a particular part of a policy—even if it is the policy of a Government whom they support. Had I been a Member of the previous Parliament, I am sure that detention would have been an issue on which I would not have supported the Government’s position. So I can see exactly why it is right to have a definition.