Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman is being a trifle unkind because he knew I was being a little light-hearted and frivolous; indeed he indulges himself in such behaviour. Whereas we allow him to get away with it, he has taken my light-hearted conjectures as a serious suggestion. What he has done, however, is to demonstrate the force of my argument, which is that we should have a proper discussion, separate from the Bill, about the question, “What is the right time period?”

There are many good counter-arguments; the hon. Gentleman has enumerated some of them. My sympathies for those prisoners denied their right to vote are more limited than my sympathies for the other categories of potential postal voter that he mentioned, but I am sure that those prisoners too will have their defenders. Should we not have a separate debate on a separate piece of legislation on this question—if legislation is required? Maybe it is required, but I do not think that we should be making this amendment to a Bill that needs to stand the test of time. It needs to rest as a keystone in our constitution that lasts through the ages and is not eroded by time. I hope, therefore, that everyone in the House will choose to reject the new clauses and the amendments proposed by the hon. Gentleman.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

My childhood, unlike that of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), was not peppered with bedtime stories of prorogations and other interesting matters.

Before I speak to the two amendments in my name, I want to discuss new clause 4 and some of the other amendments on Prorogation. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that anomalies left in legislation can lead to all sorts of continuing questions, and to absurdities and abuses. In so far as we are trying to create fixed-term Parliaments and trying to set out in clear and reliable terms the circumstances in which an election can be brought about early, we should as far as possible have those arrangements as tidy—to use the hon. Gentleman’s valleys word—as possible.

However, I accept the point that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford made: that the amendments of themselves would not sort out all the questions. If our real fear is that a future Francis Urquhart Prime Minister will exploit these anomalies and devices to create all sorts of problems, we should recognise that the amendments themselves would not fully prevent that, because a Machiavellian Prime Minister who was able to marshal and control votes in the House would be able to do exactly the same with Prorogation. To a degree we are in the realm of,

“There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza”.

Each time we try to solve the problem, we come back to the basic issue of trust and control—the control that a Prime Minister and Whips could have in the House, where things rest on a vote determined by the Prime Minister.

I believe, however, that important amendments tabled by Members on the Opposition Front Bench would at least ensure that there are not open and blatant inconsistencies between election spending windows for different elections that could be taking place fairly coterminously. Simply as a matter of good legislative practice, we should as far as possible try to resolve those problems and keep things squared now.

Also in response to what the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford said, if we are serious about the Bill being a fixed-term Parliament Bill, and if its purpose is to prevent people from being surprised into an election or an election from being called at a stroke, it could help if we had clear fixed time limits for Prorogation, such as those that are being suggested. I am somewhat like the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) in that I come from a political tradition that does not particularly like caps being doffed in the House of Lords or anywhere else, so I would prefer to avoid the constitutional eccentricity of Prorogation, but if that is part of the chosen furniture and architecture of this place, at least let us ensure that we do not trip over it in a dangerous way.

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[Mr Charles Walker]

If we support the notion of a fixed-term Parliament, which I do not, surely we have to accept that risk. If we support the idea of a fixed date in the calendar, it is just tough if there happens to be a royal wedding at the same time. We cannot have it both ways.

[Mark Durkan]

That sums up my view on royal weddings, but that is my own prejudice.

Another argument that has been made is that the Bill is about removing a prerogative from a Prime Minister and giving powers to the House. If that is what we are saying—not just that the Prime Minister is giving up some powers, but that the House is getting some—my amendment would ensure that the House gets more powers. The House should be equipped, not just to pass a motion calling for an early general election, but to specify the date—instead of leaving it to the Prime Minister to recommend to the monarch when that date should be—and there should be provision for Parliament to do so sensibly in advance. The amendments that we all debated in Committee all presumed that it would be in a matter of weeks, similar to the debate that we have just had about 17 days and 25 days’ Prorogation—in other words, in fairly close calendar quarters. I believe that we should make provision in clause 2(1) to allow the House to set a date, as amendment 14 would allow. It would provide a fourth point that could be covered by a Speaker’s certificate: whether or not a date was specified and what the date was. Amendment 15 would amend clause 2(6), so that the date could be specified.

[Mr Dodds]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I am a supporter of the Bill in principle, but having established the fixed-term principle in legislation, is not the danger of his amendments that, by resolution of the Commons proposed by the Prime Minister who rallies his troops, the principle would be effectively undermined by setting another date? So what would be the point of legislating in the first place?

[Mark Durkan]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but let us remember that the Speaker can issue two types of certificate—under clause 2(2), which relates to confidence motions, and under clause 2(1), in respect of a resolution passed by two thirds of Members—and my amendments deal only with those circumstances. If we legislate for a resolution to be passed by two thirds of Members and for the Speaker to certify certain things about that, it would be a gross oversight not to provide for hon. Members, in so voting in such a Division, to specify a date if they wished to do so, rather than to leave that up to the Prime Minister.

I do not wish to go into the constitutional twilight zone that the hon. Member for Rhondda took us into about some of the wily vagaries of prorogation powers, but if we simply leave it to a Minister, even the Prime Minister, to set a date and make no provision for the House to specify a date, we leave ourselves open to possible uncertainties and, indeed, abuses. I remind the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) that we have served in an Assembly where a Secretary of State had certain powers and obligations for setting election dates. There have been court cases about whether or not the Secretary of State had duly exercised those powers and whether he had chosen not to see things and then said that he had exercised the power to set a date by simply setting the same date that had been suggested. People have used the different devices that the law allowed.

I am simply saying that if we charge the House with the possibility of setting a different election date for its own good reasons—I assume that they would need to be good reasons if the motion was supported by two thirds of Members—we should at least allow the House to specify the date as well if we are to hold to the spirit of the Prime Minister giving up powers.

Like other hon. Members, I have serious reservations about Speaker’s certificates. My amendments would not suspend any of the qualifications that I and many other hon. Members have on that subject—the worries about the implications in terms of courts and so on—but the more that we charge the House with powers and controls in relation to the issue, the more content I would be with the Bill.

[Dan Byles]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. The entire issue of fixed-term Parliaments, sadly, is in danger of becoming yet another political football to be kicked around the House, as Members seek to manufacture objections to reform, and to posture and grandstand. I fear that the new clause and amendments for the most part would not add to the Bill in any meaningful way. The issue is really very simple. I believe that the Bill will strengthen the power of the House over a key constitutional issue and diminish the Prime Minister’s power.

Before coming to the detail of the new clause and amendments, let us remember exactly what this historic Bill is about. Previously, the Prime Minister had the power to ask for an early Dissolution of Parliament at any time. Historically, that extraordinary degree of power has been used solely to the political advantage of the party in power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I would do so, but that would impinge on the following group of amendments, and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), will be able to respond to that point during the debate about them. It would be unwise for me to leap ahead, so, although I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point, I hope that he accepts my response.

I shall address other issues that have been raised in relation to the Prime Minister’s existing power to prorogue Parliament, because, as I stressed at the beginning of my response and stress again, many of the arguments are based on the theoretical mischief that, somehow, a Prime Minister might prorogue Parliament for his or her own purposes, without accepting the fact that they can do so equally today. They can do so, as I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda, to prevent a vote of confidence that they feel likely to lose. So, with the Bill we are not strengthening the hand of the Prime Minister; far from it. We are taking away one critical element, but Prorogation will remain exactly as it is.

The conventions of this House are sufficiently strong. For instance, there is no obligation in law for the business managers to find time to debate an Opposition motion of no confidence, but the strong convention is that time will always be found for that purpose, because it is a convention that has worked well over the years. I do not believe that there is any reason why it should not work well in the future. I cannot accept that the artificial process that has been described is a real danger.

Let us consider the circumstances. There are two basic scenarios during the 14-day period in the Bill. In the first, political factors mean that a no-confidence motion passes, and there is no obvious alternative Government, so the Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the House remains in place to fight the election. There would be no need, or indeed point, for the Prime Minister to prorogue the House. The alternative is that the Prime Minister resigns after the no-confidence motion and Her Majesty appoints a new Prime Minister. Even if the new Prime Minister took office and found the House prorogued, he or she would, under the current arrangements, ask the Queen to recall Parliament. Although I acknowledge the principle behind new clause 4 and amendments 2, 3 and 4, I hope that I have demonstrated that it would be unwise and unnecessary to make them.

On amendment 9, clause 3(4) specifically preserves Her Majesty’s power to set the first day for the meeting of a new Parliament by royal proclamation. As it stands, the date of the first meeting of a new Parliament is set by proclamation and is usually agreed with the House authorities and the palace. The date is conventionally set out in the proclamation that dissolves the old Parliament. The Bill retains as much as possible of that approach by providing for the Queen to issue the proclamation summoning the new Parliament once the old Parliament has dissolved, rather than after the new Parliament has been elected. Following the last election, a date was chosen that allowed sufficient time for the large number of new Members to be inducted. It is important that such flexibility is preserved.

The purpose of amendment 9 appears to be to require Her Majesty to set a date for the first meeting of a Parliament that is within 15 working days of the general election. Again, I have a quibble over drafting, because it is not entirely clear whether the intention behind the amendment is that Her Majesty should issue the proclamation within 15 working days, or whether the first meeting of Parliament should take place within 15 working days. The hon. Member for Rhondda made it clear that his intention was the latter, but that is not clear in the drafting of the amendment. Our primary purpose in the Bill has been to establish fixed terms and set out the procedures for initiating an early election. We have made only the necessary consequential changes to the Queen’s powers. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman not to press amendment 9.

Amendments 14 and 15, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle, suggest that if the House votes for an early Dissolution under clause 2, it should be able to choose the date of the ensuing general election. The Bill provides that if there is to be an early general election, the date will be set by Her Majesty the Queen in a royal proclamation on the advice of the Prime Minister. That is to ensure that an appropriate date can be found, for instance so that the poll can be held on a Thursday, as has become standard practice.

Although amendment 14 provides that the date of an early general election would be set out in the Speaker’s certificate, that would be the case only if the House of Commons had specified such a date in the Dissolution motion. That is a genuine concern with the amendment because a two-thirds majority is required to agree that there should be an early Dissolution. Under the amendment, two thirds of the House would also have to agree to the date of the election. It is quite possible that Members would agree to the one proposition and not the other. Alternative dates and amendments could therefore be tabled. That would muddy the water of what should be a clear-cut process. That is a concern about the operation of the Bill, if it is enacted, which perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not considered.

[Mark Durkan]

Amendment 14 would make it optional, not obligatory, that a date be specified. If the House votes a year or more in advance of the election, why should the date not be fixed then, rather than it being left up to the Prime Minister? Under the Bill, the House, by a two-thirds majority, would be handing a power back to the Prime Minister that the Prime Minister says he wants to give up.

[Mr Heath]

I do not dismiss the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. I understand what he is saying. However, in purely practical terms, it is difficult for the House to receive advice from any quarter on what would be an appropriate date. The House as a whole would find it difficult to take the sort of advice that the Prime Minister, as an individual, could easily assemble. In the politically charged atmosphere of a vote of no confidence, it is hard to understand—[Interruption.] Sorry, not a vote of no confidence. I could see what the hon. Member for Foyle was thinking. In the consideration of an early election, it would be even more difficult to set.

There are always technical issues in establishing the most appropriate date for a general election, and the considerations of all parts of the United Kingdom must be taken into account. I know that the hon. Gentleman has had mixed experiences, but he knows that it is the experience of the devolved Administrations that it is useful in the circumstances that have been suggested for an individual to have this responsibility. Giving it to the House as a whole would be technically difficult, without a significant advance in the arrangements being achieved.

I move on to amendment 8, which the hon. Member for Rhondda said “makes things tidy”, in the words of his valet. I am sure that it would, and I have some sympathy with his argument. The amendment would lengthen the election timetable by requiring Parliament to dissolve 25 working days before polling day, rather than 17. The Government recognise that remaking the election timetable is a complex matter that we should consider. However, it cannot be done simply by edict and without the background work.

The Electoral Commission supports the idea, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He did not make a great deal of that in his speech, but I know that he knows the background material. The commission has suggested that an extension to the electoral timetable would support participation by overseas and service voters, and better support the effective administration of elections. We agree that it is an important issue, and the Deputy Prime Minister has indicated to the commission that there is merit in exploring a change to the timetable. However, as the commission has pointed out, it would require a thorough review to ensure that any change is consistent with the arrangements for elections across the piece.

A host of practical issues and consequential complexities must be considered. We will have to form a balanced judgment on where particular milestones would best fall within an extended election timetable. For example, there might be competing views about the deadline for nominations, and we would have to work to find the most effective compromise. Another crucial milestone is the deadline for registering to vote, which, although not part of the timetable structure, is inextricable from it. That illustrates that such changes to the timetable cannot be made in isolation. As part of the process, we would need to consider the current deadlines for postal and proxy vote applications. Additionally, different elections across the UK run to different timetables and moving to 25 days in Westminster would not, of itself, generate consistency.

As I have said, the Government agree that this is an important issue and we will set out our proposals on the timetable in due course. We have held initial discussions with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators to identify points to address. It should be noted that the Bill already greatly enhances the ability of administrators and candidates to plan ahead, because we will know when general elections will happen, usually at least five years in advance. The various people involved in running elections will be able to factor that into their thinking and organisation. Even if the provisions for an early election were engaged, the Bill sets out clearly the steps from the Dissolution motion or no-confidence motion to the Dissolution of Parliament, and those steps will be conducted in the public eye. There will be no more snap elections, and I believe that electoral administrators and candidates can be glad about that.

The final reason for asking the hon. Member for Rhondda not to pursue amendment 8, despite its merit and the fact that the issue needs to be considered, is that the Bill is not the right place to amend the election timetable. The Bill is about fixing the date of the poll, not wholesale electoral reform, as we have said repeatedly. Governments are constantly urged by everyone to have focused legislation that deals with specific objects. This is just such a piece of focused legislation and I do not want to cloud the simple but constitutionally significant issue of fixing parliamentary terms with other electoral issues.

Having said that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members who have tabled amendments will not press them to a vote, so that we can continue with the debate on the final group of amendments.

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[Mark Durkan]

Those of us who have been through all the stages of this Bill, including the Committee stage and the Report stage tonight, were delighted to see the Deputy Prime Minister join us. The same thing happened during proceedings on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill; the Deputy Prime Minister came in like Janet Webb at the end, pushing out the two comedians who had run the show, to make the valedictory statements.

Many of us have no issue with the principle of a fixed-term Parliament. We support that, but we do have serious questions about details of the Bill, and how it interacts with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. That other Bill is the real reason why the parliamentary term is being set at five years: that Bill fixes that the boundaries will be fixed every five years for each Parliament, which is what has necessitated the five-year fixed term in this Bill—it is because of that fix, and there is no point anybody denying that.

The Deputy Prime Minister and the Government have brought this Bill about in a way that has shown a complete disregard for the interests of the devolved institutions, as they also did with that other Bill. That reckless disregard almost has the air of a joyrider about it. The Deputy Prime Minister needs to recognise that the day will come when he will regret the premature miscalculation that has been involved in both these Bills. They will not hold the coalition together. As we have seen in the experience of Irish coalition politics on so many occasions, there comes a point in the life of a coalition when people look to get out of it.

The Deputy Leader of the House said earlier that this Bill will prevent any snap election in future. It will do no such thing. The device for a motion of no confidence is not unusable. It is not the case that nobody is ever going to use it; it will be used. Many of us have been through the experience in politics where the unthinkable has happened, because that is the device people had available to them. I have belonged to a system where a resignation that took place was then deemed not to have taken place at all. I have been present when judgments that were meant to be made by a Secretary of State, under the law, to select a date were then completely undone. I have served with people who, on being elected to office, immediately had letters of resignation in their pockets, simply because that was the device that could be used. People will do the absurd. In politics, as in so many other things, when the imperative comes for divorce, divorce will take place. People will not say, “We are not going for it because we will have to go through temporary embarrassment or we will take some of the blame.” That is what people will do, and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves caught in that situation, with the Tories and Labour happily ending this Parliament prematurely.