UN Security Council Resolution (Libya)
Nick Boles Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I absolutely give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. It seems to me that we have to learn both the lessons of Iraq, by proceeding with the maximum Arab support and being very clear that there will be no army of occupation, and the lessons of Bosnia and not stand aside and witness a slaughter. It falls to Cabinets and Governments at this time, though, to recognise that no two situations are exactly alike. This is not Iraq; it is not Bosnia; it is not Lebanon; it is unique and different. We have to respond to it and use the right judgment to try to get our response correct. That is what this Government are determined to do, and as I have said, we are determined to take as many people with us as possible.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
May I thank the Prime Minister for his singular service over the past few weeks? Will he join me in paying tribute to those who will render an even greater service—the young men and women on whose skills, training and courage we will rely, as we have so often in our past?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. It is not the people who make the decisions who have the difficult choices and the difficult path ahead; it is those who have to carry out those decisions. We should be incredibly proud of our armed forces, of their professionalism, courage and dedication and of their ability to take on a task such as this and pursue it with such vigour. It is inspiring to see it happen. We should never take them for granted or ask them to do tasks that they cannot complete, but I have full confidence that they will perform magnificently, as they always do.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Anybody who knows me knows that my appreciation of a glass of reasonably priced white wine is second to no one’s in this House, and my appreciation of a glass of reasonably priced white wine served by the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing street is extreme, but my love for the British constitution is greater than that.
Nick Boles
The shadow Minister asks whether my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is charging for the drinks he is serving in No. 10 Downing street. In response, I would merely point out something that seems to have escaped the attention of Opposition Members.
Thomas Docherty
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman seems to be claiming that the Prime Minister is using Downing street for commercial purposes. Is it appropriate for the hon. Gentleman to make such a serious allegation against his own Prime Minister?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I think we all know that that is not a point of order.
Nick Boles
I do not want to stray from the subject of the new clauses and the amendments, but I should point out something that seems permanently to escape Opposition Members, which is that we live in a time of austerity, and our Prime Minister is doing everything he can to maximise revenue to the Exchequer and minimise expense, hence the reasonably priced wine being served and the—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. We are straying from the subject of new clause 4. The price of drinks in Downing street has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.
Nick Boles
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was in danger of being wholly distracted from my point, which is that my love for the British constitution, such as it is, is greater even than my love for a glass of reasonably priced white wine served at No. 10 Downing street, and there is no part of the British constitution for which I have a greater passion than that nebulous concept of Prorogation. It is the subject of the stories that my parents read to me by my bedside when I was a child. I agree that it sounds like a sad childhood, but such it was.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made an ingenious argument about the dangers of this power remaining with the sovereign. He suggested that a Prime Minister presiding without a secure majority and having lost a vote of no confidence in this House might advise the sovereign to prorogue Parliament to avoid the possibility of Parliament passing a vote of confidence in an alternative Government and thereby bringing about an election, rather than the installation of a new Government. I am second to none in my passion for the nebulous concept of Prorogation, but I am no lawyer, unlike the hon. Gentleman.
Nick Boles
I withdraw that comment, Mr Deputy Speaker, which was almost certainly unparliamentary and banned by “Erskine May”. The hon. Gentleman said he felt he had a certain expertise in English law but not in Scottish law. I point out that my expertise in any law is equivalent to his expertise in Scottish law, so I am skating across boggy ground, if such a thing is possible.
The hon. Gentleman tried to argue that the power to prorogue should transfer to Parliament so that a Prime Minister who has lost his majority and lost the confidence of this House cannot use the power and the persuadability of the sovereign to remain in office and require an election to be called. He has an excessively colourful imagination. I understand that where no party has a clear majority in this House the role of the sovereign is to see whether a stable Government can be formed.
We saw a very good example of that after the last general election, when there was no clear result and no party had a clear majority in this House. The sovereign behaved impeccably in allowing and encouraging the parties, both the Labour party in government and the Opposition parties, to explore which arrangement was the most stable and to form the Government who had the most chance of lasting. Surely where a party in government has lost a vote of confidence in this House and no longer commands a stable majority here it would be an absolutely integral part of the sovereign’s constitutional role to invite the other party leaders to explore whether they could form a stable majority. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) frowns. I would be happy to take an intervention from him, but may I finish explaining my logic? He can then explain to me why, as so often, it is flawed.
The sovereign would invite other party leaders to see whether they could secure a stable majority and they would have those conversations even if Parliament had been prorogued. If a group of parties not then in the Government told Her Majesty—or His Majesty, on some future date—that they could form a stable Government and provided good evidence of that fact, and if the Cabinet Secretary were to advise that they were a stable Government, there is no reason why Her Majesty should not invite the leader of the parties putting together that constellation to form a Government. At that point, that leader would be the Prime Minister and could kiss hands—all of that can happen without Parliament being involved. That leader would then be the Prime Minister and would be able to “rerogue” or “unrogue”—I do not know what the correct term is—and recall Parliament, thus cancelling Prorogation, and put their Government to a vote of confidence. If they were successful, that would obviate the need for a further election. So I do not think that the logic of the argument made by the hon. Member for Rhondda holds.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I apologise for not being here earlier in the debate, but I am seriously concerned about what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, which is a degree of politicisation of the monarch, as Head of State, from which I would draw back. If a degree of automaticity were involved and any Prime Minister of the day who could not form a Government automatically, as a convention, asked the leader of the next major party to form one, that would be one thing. If the monarch is making political judgments about who he or she should choose, that is a very different matter. When George V involved himself in helping to form the national Government in 1931 that was pushing the monarch too far into politics. Heads of State should not have that role.
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman also makes a strong argument and has much greater historical knowledge than I do. I would say only that if the Bill becomes law, it will become a clear part of our constitutional arrangements that the expectation, the desire and the will of the people is that we have fixed-term Parliaments lasting five years. Therefore, should there be an interruption that led to a vote of no confidence in a Government and the Prime Minister came to the sovereign asking for her to prorogue Parliament, it would be clear to the sovereign, who would also receive advice from her advisers, that there was a danger of frustrating the constitution and frustrating the will of the people for us to have elections every five years.
Given that the Prime Minister would have lost a vote of confidence in this House—in the old days that would normally have automatically led to their no longer having a right to govern—I do not think it would be classified as the sovereign “meddling” in politics were she then to say that she would invite alternatives if the Prime Minister could not tell her that he or she could form a stable Government without going to the people in an election. If the Prime Minister could not give her that reassurance, it would be entirely proper for the sovereign—her advisers would tell her this—to see whether the Parliament that had not run its full course did not contain an alternative stable Government who could be formed and for her to invite the relevant leader of any such Government to kiss hands, become Prime Minister and resummon Parliament to see whether they could win a vote of confidence. That is why the fear of the hon. Member for Rhondda is not justified. In fact, a reverse fear is involved.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Is not the very purpose behind the Bill and the cooling-off period after a vote of no confidence precisely to allow that to happen? The expectation would not be that Her Majesty or His Majesty would interfere in the political process. Under the Bill, such a situation would throw the game open to see whether a Government who can command the confidence of this House can be formed. People elect MPs and then, to a certain extent, they expect us to get on and govern; they do not expect us to squabble, throw our toys out of the pram and have another election because it suits us.
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend puts it far more succinctly and better than I could. The key point is that there is nothing to stop that process happening just because Parliament is prorogued. We do not stop existing or being able to have conversations with each other, with Her Majesty’s advisers or with senior members of the civil service because Parliament is prorogued. We would still exist, we would still be MPs and we would still be able to go through that process.
Thomas Docherty
“Erskine May” is quite clear about the fact that if Parliament is prorogued, all the Bills before the House fall. So it is not entirely accurate to say that there is no effect to proroguing Parliament.
Nick Boles
Of course I accept that, but it is not really what we are referring to. We are referring to non-legislative activity associated with forming a Government.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Would that not be crucial? A new Prime Minister from another party would want all the Bills of the old party’s Prime Minister to fall. Prorogation would be beneficial.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong, I am afraid, much as I like him—
Chris Bryant
Both of you. I am quite happy to like anybody.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is completely wrong. A person from the same political party might want to take over. The no-confidence vote might apply to the Prime Minister as an individual rather than to the whole Government. I would agree with the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) were it not for the way in which the Bill is worded, because it refers to the period of 14 days—not 14 sitting days. The House could be adjourned or prorogued during that period, or it could already be prorogued. There are many different situations in which we need to seize this power back into the hands of the House rather than the Government.
Nick Boles
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has thought about this for longer, more deeply and in a more researched way than I have, as I was invited to make this speech only a relatively short time ago.
Dan Byles
It is a slightly odd idea that we could have a vote of no confidence and that somebody from the governing party might take up the reins. Any party that had a vote of no confidence rather than a leadership challenge to change their leader would be highly irresponsible.
Nick Boles
My hon. Friend is right. There were moments in the previous Parliament when we all might have wished that the party in government had taken that route rather than imposing on us the rather long, drawn-out demise that we all witnessed.
Chris Bryant
Much as I like the other hon. Gentleman, whose name I do not know—[Laughter.] No, I do, but he was completely wrong. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire would be right if the Bill determined what counted as a motion of no confidence, but it does not. A motion of no confidence could be a motion of censure of an individual person. It might be tabled by the Opposition, and, if they won, they would end up unseating somebody as a party leader without unseating the Government.
Nick Boles
I have a sense that we will probably not persuade the hon. Gentleman here and now, although I have eternal optimism that we will persuade him of everything in due course.
Let me move on to the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Rhondda, which, to my mind, is as flawed—though also as ingenious—as his analysis of what he sees as the problems with the Bill. His solution is that this House, and exclusively this House, would have the power to prorogue. I believe that the House would adopt a resolution and the Speaker would then prorogue Parliament. The problem is another circumstance that the Opposition parties have talked about. When a Prime Minister with a rather small majority in this House feels, in the middle of a five-year term, that everything is going frightfully well, they might cynically decide to engineer a vote of no confidence that they would then instruct their Members to vote for in order to bring the House down, to prorogue and, more importantly, to have a further election. I have heard in earlier discussions that that vexes and worries Opposition Members and the hon. Member for Rhondda. Surely, his solution would fall prey to that ruse far more than happens under the current circumstances, when only the monarch can prorogue Parliament.
If a Prime Minister who felt that everything was going frightfully well and that if he had a quick election he could get a better majority could engineer a vote of no confidence by getting his troops to support it, surely he could engineer a resolution of the House to prorogue just as cynically, wilfully and arbitrarily. Does not the hon. Gentleman’s proposal move the power of prorogation, which currently sits in that special, rather hallowed constitutional place of being one of the few things that the sovereign does, on to the Floor of this House where it will become subject to all the machinations and swirls of this place and of ambitious Prime Ministers trying to secure a better majority?
Chris Bryant
Prime Ministers are by definition ambitious, I think—that was otiose. No. The Prime Minister, to all intents and purposes, is the Crown and the Crown, to all intents and purposes, is the Prime Minister in the exercise of prerogative powers. Secondly, there is a significant advantage in not just being able to prorogue and close Parliament by proclamation but having to come to the House to make a speech to argue for it. That is the big difference.
Nick Boles
Although I defer hugely to the hon. Gentleman’s greater understanding, he betrays a lack of a feel for how this constitution of ours works. The same criticism could be applied to some of his other amendments. The whole point of our constitution is that it is organic and flexible, and that it develops over time. Everything we do, every decision we make and every Bill we pass slightly shifts and changes the constitution. It is not a rules-based constitution but a practice-based constitution. Of course, there are rules—the Parliament Acts, the Salisbury convention and so on—but they develop and metamorphose as we use them.
Nick Boles
If I may, I would like at least to develop the argument enough for the hon. Gentleman to be able to fire it down good and proper.
Once we have passed this Bill and created five-year Parliaments and the expectation that they are the norm for this country, the constitution will have changed. The way in which the sovereign uses her powers to invite people to form Governments, to see whether they can win the confidence of this House, to prorogue and to accept advice from a Prime Minister will change. We will all make the argument that it would be profoundly unconstitutional for a Prime Minister who had just lost a vote of no confidence to abuse his power as the monarch’s sole adviser to advise her to prorogue a Parliament. It would be absolutely within the monarch’s rights to say, “I am defending the constitution. I am defending this new expectation that we should have five-year Parliaments by trying to see whether there is somebody other than this loser, who has just lost the confidence of the House, who can command a majority. That does not interfere with Parliament or government—I am in fact interpreting properly the will of the people, which is that we should have five-year terms.” I believe that the hon. Member for Rhondda thinks that these rules are unchanging and unbending and that they will not shift and metamorphose in response to the Bill.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman has referred repeatedly to the will of the people, but at no point did his party leader or the Deputy Prime Minister promise a five-year term. However, his party leader did say that if there was a change of Prime Minister, there would be a general election within six months. Why has that not been considered as part of the Government’s Bill?
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman is cunning, as ever. Unfortunately, in almost all his interventions in this debate—and in any other—he tends to argue that this House represents the sovereign will of the people, so it is a bit rich for him to shift ground and suddenly say that if something was not discussed in an election campaign, it did not receive the endorsement of the people. We are sufficient and entire unto ourselves, capable of representing the will of the people. If we decide, as I believe and hope we will, that we want to adopt this Bill, and if the gentlemen and ladies in the other place decide that they would prefer to have slightly more sleep and approve the Bill, we will have decided—we are the will of the people—that this is how we want our constitution to operate in future. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s ingenious objection.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend briefly explain why he feels that the change of a Prime Minister should trigger a general election within six months?
Nick Boles
The question that has been asked does not relate to the clause or the amendments and I defer always to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, as to whether my comments would be relevant, although of course I want to be courteous to my hon. Friend.
Nick Boles
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, from the bottom of my heart.
As I hear in the distance the light pop of the second bottle being opened in No. 10 Downing street, I shall move on to other amendments in the group. The hon. Member for Rhondda has talked about tidying up. “Tidy” is a great word, particularly when spoken in the inimitable accent not of the valets, but of the valleys. I rather share his love of the word, but not the concept. It is an entirely classic Labour reaction to try to make everything neat and tidy. His further amendments would tidy up and specify when Parliament would return after a general election, but he has not told us why or when this has been a problem in the past. He never said, “There was that famous time when something happened in the country and we were not able to discuss it because we had not returned,” or, “There was that famous time when the Prime Minister did not want to do PMQs and avoided them because she or he was so terrified.” He has not given any reasons to explain why things are not working at the moment, so this is one of the rare occasions on which I shall associate myself with the deep instinct of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that we should not change things unless they are demonstrably broken.
Mr Charles Walker
Is not my hon. Friend making a good argument for retaining the current system and doing away with the Bill altogether?
Nick Boles
That is an even more ingenious attempt, Mr Deputy Speaker, because it is harder for me to appeal to you for succour on this point, but I reject my hon. Friend’s point because I believe that the Bill is one of principle. I believe that the idea of Prime Ministers picking the dates of elections is wholly outrageous in a modern democracy and that we must have fixed-term Parliaments. I happen to know that this argument has been raging inside the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties for years, so it is a cause of high principle.
The history of the British constitution is that changes of high principle happen only when the parties in power see political advantage in such change; that is how democracy works. Britain has been reformed when the great causes have been aligned with low party interest and I thank—I am not sure if I am allowed to say what I was going to say—the stars that in this Parliament at this time that alliance of high principle and low politics has come together and that we are putting through Parliament a Bill that will establish fixed-term elections and remove the Prime Minister’s right to choose a date that is to his or her advantage.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. But I would be more convinced by his argument if the Bill were to apply after the next election, but this looks like a Government trying to perpetuate their term in office to five years.
Nick Boles
I detect from the hon. Gentleman’s expression and demeanour that he is worried, but he should not be because we genuinely want the changes to become permanent—as much as the constitution of our country can allow that. We genuinely want there to be, at least for as long as any of us can see, a habit, norm and expectation deep in our society that there will be elections in May every five years. I hope that is how the situation will be perceived in this country after the Bill is passed—without my hon. Friends’ amendments.
Nick Boles
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend—may I call him that? I feel as though we are friends even though we sit on opposite sides. I am always nervous about the customs of this place: I wanted to say thank God; I meant thank God; and frankly the stars have absolutely nothing to do with it. I am happy to be corrected.
Returning to the tidiness of the amendment of the hon. Member for Rhondda, he has not demonstrated, or even provided a shred of evidence to explain why the current point at which Parliament is recalled after an election is a problem or causes any difficulties. We should reject his amendment.
The hon. Gentleman has tabled another amendment to regulate the timetable for elections and he has again made a superficially appealing argument about lining up the different election timetables for different tiers of government, but it will not have escaped the attention of Government Members that he has, as ever, lined up with the longer figure. That betrays the deep belief of the Labour party, of which the hon. Gentleman provides a good example, that what the country needs are more politics, longer election campaigns, more leaflets going through doors and more people knocking on one’s door just when EastEnders is on or when a good game has started.
Dan Byles
The House has faced a big problem with fundraising and the increasing cost of democracy. Would not longer election campaigns lead to more expense and a greater requirement for parties to raise funds? We all know that parties get into trouble however they try to raise funds, so is this not the wrong direction to go in?
Chris Bryant
Well, the hon. Gentleman should not, because if we extended the 17 days to 25, there would be less need to raise money because the amount that can be spent in a short election campaign is much more circumscribed than the amount that could be spent across the whole of the previous year. With a fixed-term Parliament, it should be possible to restrict the amount of money much more readily, so that is a further reason—I am glad he has added another—for him to support my amendment.
Nick Boles
I am not sure I understood that point, so, in a traditional Tory way, I am going to reject it because the hon. Gentleman said it.
The issue is whether the timetables should conform to the lower figure of 17 days or the higher figure of 25 days. My instinct, and probably that of most Government Members, is that any conformity should be to a shorter election campaign and a quicker decision. However, we must then address the issue of whether it is appropriate to determine that figure in this Bill. I believe that the Bill makes a fundamental constitutional change—to that extent I agree with those of my hon. Friends who are uncomfortable with parts of it—but that is why I support it. I want that fundamental constitutional change and I want it to remain for ever. I want it to be something that people will describe in 25 or 30 years’ time as one of the big constitutional shifts in the life of modern Britain. Because the Bill will make such a fundamental constitutional change, I do not want to hang about with all sorts of little, pernickety tidying-up exercises. I do not want to lumber the Bill with measures that might seem irrelevant in future, thereby opening the door to further amendment. I want the Bill to have as few clauses as possible—clear clauses that are based on the principled position that the timing of an election should not be up to the Prime Minister but should be a matter of rhythm and pattern defined by our constitution.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Is it not in the nature of these issues that parliamentarians will take the opportunity, when a relevant Bill comes before the House, to deal with matters for which such an opportunity might not come again for a long time? What is the hon. Gentleman’s position on the amendment? Does he agree that the election period should be the same for local, parliamentary and Assembly elections, but not that it should be extended? Clearly, there are advantages to having the same period for all elections, not least in terms of calculating election expenditure for returns.
Nick Boles
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and I agree with him. If we are to have, as I hope we will, elections falling in a regular pattern, coinciding with other elections to other important democratic bodies, it seems obvious that there should be a consistent series. Otherwise, people would find it very confusing if local election campaigns had started while the parliamentary election campaign they all knew was coming had not. In such a situation, if parties put out leaflets with councillors on one side and a parliamentary candidate on the other, they might get into trouble for jumping the gun. The point he makes is absolutely right, but we should not necessarily decide here and now, in this Bill, between the proposals for 17 or 25 days, or even that the length should be 17 or 25 days. If we want to make this change, should we not think a bit harder about what the period should be? I have only thought of it on the spur of the moment, but I think I could make a very strong case for 12 days, and if someone wants to enter into a bit of a Dutch auction and say eight days, I would be happy with that too.
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is wrong, because one major reason why we might want a slightly longer period is to allow people who register for a postal vote to get their vote in on time. The hon. Gentleman’s Government will be legislating for prisoners to have the vote; they will vote by post, as I understand it. In addition, as I heard him say earlier, people who live abroad—especially those in the armed forces—who vote by post would find it impossible to do so within a period of eight or 12 days. They already find it very difficult to do so within 17 days but they do manage to do so within the 25-day period for local elections.
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.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
This week 38 businesses wrote to the papers backing the action. Those businesses were spread right across the country, but let me give the hon. Lady some satisfaction in terms of the north-east. I believe that the north-east has a great future in renewable energy, and she is about to hear that we are protecting capital spending so that the carbon capture and storage projects will go ahead and the investment in wind power will go ahead. As for the green investment bank, which lots of people have talked about, we will be putting proper money into it so that it can invest in the north-east and elsewhere in the country.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Q13. Can my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents who rely on the excellent hospitals in Grantham and Stamford that he has rejected the advice of the shadow Chancellor, and will protect spending on our NHS?
The Prime Minister
I can absolutely give that guarantee. That is something on which we fought the election, something that is in the coalition agreement, and something that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be delivering.
We will have to make difficult decisions, including difficult decisions about the NHS, but what I can say is that we will fulfil our promise that national health spending will not be cut in real terms under this Government. That is a big contrast with what we hear from the Labour party, which has said in terms—particularly the shadow Chancellor—that protecting the national health service is wrong. We do not agree: we think that it is right.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Joan Ruddock
Absolutely. It is utterly hypocritical of Government Members to accuse the Labour Government of doing nothing, because local authorities put things into practice, and many have chosen not to. It is also completely unethical to propose a Bill of this nature knowing that millions are not registered and utterly refuse to do anything about registration prior to the Bill possibly becoming law.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Would the right hon. Lady care to tell us when it would be possible to carry out a boundary review, or are we to have Labour seats being smaller than other seats for ever, given that we will never have a perfect electoral roll?
Joan Ruddock
The judgment that the hon. Gentleman makes in saying that Labour seats are smaller is based on numbers.
We challenge the Government to work with all of us—the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark suggested how we might all work together—to increase levels of registration. If we did that, the Government would be in a much better position having made an honest effort to argue the case with us. In my view, even if we do the best that we can, there is still an issue that cannot be ignored.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Bryant
If I may finish my argument, I will then give way to the Minister.
In Wales, the results will be by Assembly constituency, which is the same as by parliamentary constituency. In Scotland, we will have them by Scottish parliamentary constituency, which is different.
Chris Bryant
In a moment, although I have promised to give way to the Minister. I am not sure which way age and beauty apply in this case, but I will give way to the Minister first, after I have finished my argument.
In England, we will have results by various electoral areas. For the sake of clarity in understanding the legitimacy of the vote, especially as this is not just an advisory but an implementing referendum—as laid out in the Bill—it would be better if we had equality across the United Kingdom, with the results announced in the same way in every constituency.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the Minister’s helpful intervention, because he made half the point I made myself.
I do not know what the total number of results will be, but let us say there will be 40 for Wales, and those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and so on. If, in a large number of those constituencies, there is a very narrow result, it will have a material effect on how people view the eventual result, particularly in relation to the differential turnout that might be achieved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—by virtue of the fact that there are other elections at the same time—compared with the turnout in England.
Nick Boles
The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion seems extraordinary. I had understood that the Labour party’s position was to support the move towards an AV system, yet it seems that it wants to create all sorts of divisions and to undermine the legitimacy of any result. Surely, the whole point of the referendum is that it is a referendum for the electoral system for the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The only result that matters is the result for one constituency—the constituency of the entire United Kingdom. Trying to undermine the result by suggesting that, “Oh, in Gloucestershire, they did not vote for it” or, “Oh, in one part of Scotland, they did not vote for it”, seems to be a very strange thing to want to do.
Chris Bryant
In which case, the hon. Gentleman should be voting against the Government’s proposals, because their proposal is to conduct the referendum by constituency in Wales, by a different set of constituencies in Scotland and by different areas in England. Of course, those will all be added up. I am trying not to undermine, but to strengthen the result of the vote. Also, I should say to him that he has got the Labour party’s manifesto slightly wrong. Our commitment was to have a referendum on the alternative vote. We want the United Kingdom to be able to make a decision on that.
Nick Boles
I misspoke. I meant that the person who tabled amendment 353—the hon. Gentleman’s party leader—has stated that he is in favour of a move to the alternative vote. Is that not the case?
Chris Bryant
I have said that I will vote for the alternative vote, and I will vote for it. I personally support it and believe that it is the best way of electing candidates. It is how I was elected as a candidate for the Labour party in Rhondda, so it would be illogical for me to vote differently. However—
Chris Bryant
Could the hon. Gentleman just keep calm for a moment? I recognise that many other people in my party take a different view on that. However, all I am trying to secure is a clear process that is effected equally across the whole of the United Kingdom. I think, therefore, that it would make more sense for the results to be provided by parliamentary constituency, because, as he himself said, we are talking about parliamentary elections.
Nick Boles
I apologise for taxing the hon. Gentleman on this point, but I think he is muddling up a separate issue with the practical arrangements for counting the votes. The Government are proposing—eminently sensibly, it seems to me—that we use whichever constituencies are counting votes for other elections. So in the case of the Assemblies in the devolved institutions—
Nick Boles
Parliaments, sorry—forgive me. In the other nations of the United Kingdom, it makes sense to use their constituencies. In England, however, where all we have are local authority elections, it makes sense to use them. That is a practical measure. It is not to suggest that it is legitimate to start second-guessing the result on the basis of whether, in this or that constituency, the alternative vote passed. What the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is suggesting is an entirely unnecessary, further division—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I was generous in allowing such a long intervention, but the hon. Gentleman has gone on far too long. If the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) chooses not to answer, I will understand.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend makes a good point. My anxiety is that the route down which we are travelling will mean that ordinary constituents—voters around the land—will end up being treated differently according to which part of the country they live in. If the whole Bill goes through, they will effectively have less of an understanding of who represents them, because at different tiers there will be no clear structure going from the local authority, whether unitary or not, to the Assembly Member in Wales or the Scottish Parliament, or the UK Parliament. That is why the basic building block of the referendum, as it concerns the whole of the United Kingdom, should be the parliamentary constituency. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) obviously disagrees.
As for the Government’s other amendments, I am still not satisfied by the Minister’s answers about whether the job has been done properly or not. He says that he would not want to do the job of the chief counting officer, but in fact the Bill makes—[Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House says that it would be improper, but the Bill makes vast numbers of provisions relating to the counting officer, as does other legislation. As the Minister has introduced this new concept of not paying for a job that has not been done properly, I do not understand why it is not possible to delineate what not doing the job properly means.
For instance, if it had been decided that all the ballot papers for the referendum should be a different colour from the ballot papers for other elections on the day, would not doing the job properly mean that the ballot papers had not been provided in the right colour? Would not doing the job properly mean that some polling stations had too many barriers to disabled access? Would it mean that some of the polling stations did not have the official stamp? There is a whole series of issues in relation to the combination of polls that are laid out in the legislation in Scotland and Wales. I presume that the Minister wants to replicate those in the many amendments that he will come forward with, yet he says that he cannot make it clear this afternoon what not paying for a job that has not been done properly would mean.
Nick Boles
Is this not a classic example of over-micro-management of professionals? We have a chief counting officer who knows her job. Would the hon. Gentleman not be willing to let her decide whether the law was being adhered to, rather than telling her how to do it?
Chris Bryant
In which case, again, the hon. Gentleman ought to be striking out large parts of the Bill, because the Bill determines in large measure precisely what the job of the chief counting officer is. Indeed, other legislation similarly does so, because we have to have clarity about certain things. For instance, should it be possible in Wales and Scotland for there to be just one polling card for the referendum and the Assembly or parliamentary elections, or should it be a requirement that there be two? If we left the issue to people’s discretion and everybody decided to go for one, many people might say, “No, sorry, that undermines the referendum,” because we would not be making it clear that, in addition to the Assembly elections, which would get a lot of media attention in Wales, there was a referendum on the same day. That is why the hon. Gentleman’s Government will introduce amendments on the matter. His quarrel is therefore not with me; it is with the Minister, which I am sure will upset him enormously.
I am keen to provide as much clarity as possible at this stage, quite simply because I believe that the Government are proceeding in the wrong order. First and foremost, we should have the legislation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to make it clear whether there will be three sets of elections in Northern Ireland—again, we still do not know, despite the fact that it is not many months ago—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but I am being corrected by the Northern Ireland Minister. Would he like to—[Interruption.] No, he remains in his place. In relation to Wales and Scotland, the legislation has not been changed, but that is what should happen first, and then we should move forward with the amendments that have been adumbrated today.
I will be keen to press our amendment 353 to a Division. Even if hon. Members may support the Government, I very much hope that they will also support the amendment standing in my name and that of my right hon. Friends.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Jenkin
If we were really keen on reflecting what the electorate of this country want, we would not give them a referendum at all, because I do not think they want one. [Hon. Members: “Europe!”] In the interests of coalition unity, let us not go there—I think that is the expression.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend not just revealed the truth of his position, which is that he has constructed a very elegant, beautifully researched and fascinating argument for a position that I do not think he really holds? His real position is that he does not want a referendum at all, because he does not want AV and thinks that we might lose the referendum. I agree with him on AV—I do not want it either—but I think he lacks confidence in the first-past-the-post system and our party’s ability, and that of many supporters on the Labour Benches, such as the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), who made a fantastic speech in support of first past the post, to win the argument. He has therefore constructed this elaborate mechanism to make an argument that he does not really buy.
Mr Jenkin
I am rather touched—I have never been accused of lacking confidence before. I think that the NO2AV campaign will win whatever the date, and I have every confidence that AV will be trashed at the polls. However, I do not think that my hon. Friend has been listening to my point. The question is not whether the date should be moved for the convenience of the yes or no campaigns; it is an issue of principle. If we believe in direct democracy, as I do, we should want the issues addressed in a referendum to be separated and—as the Electoral Commission used to put it—elevated above the party political battle, so that the British people have a fair and uncluttered opportunity to understand those issues. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will support either the amendment in the name of the nationalists or, failing that, the amendment that I will move later.
Mr Davidson
Ettrick, Tweeddale and Lauderdale? No? Well, whatever seat he has, it is quite a big and complicated seat to describe, which is perhaps an excuse for why he was unable to fill in his expenses properly. One can imagine how difficult it will be in that constituency when not only are they filling in the expenses for the first-past-the-post seat and the list seat, but the referendum as well. I wish him well in resolving his difficulties, but one can imagine the problems there being replicated all over the country, with the scope for legal actions and threats. They are enormous. On those grounds alone, if there were not so many other grounds to do so, we should be supporting the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and opposing the idea of having these elections on the same day.
Nick Boles
It is with great nervousness that I rise to speak, because we have heard so many brilliant speeches—sincere, passionate, beautifully constructed speeches—from senior Members. I think in particular of my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)—my own particular colleague in Lincolnshire—for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). We have also heard some passionate, well argued contributions, in particular from Members who represent parties in the other great nations of the United Kingdom than the one from which I come. It is with perhaps even greater nervousness that I speak as a new Member of the House, here for only a few months, when so many distinguished people, who have sat on these Benches for five, 10, 15 or 20 years, speak against the Bill and in favour of the amendments.
It seems that I will be the lone voice on these Benches to speak in favour of the Government’s proposals and against the amendments. This debate, which we have all sat in now for more than four hours, has been a classic case of politicians talking to politicians about matters that interest only politicians and that matter not a jot to the people whom we are meant to represent. It is entirely understandable that this debate should be of such great moment to politicians, because we are discussing the process by which we apply for and interview for our jobs—the electoral system. So it is no surprise that we are all so concerned that we are willing to sit here for interminable hours discussing the finer detail of the funding of elections and of the broadcasting balance.
One would imagine, listening to the contributions from all parts of the Committee, from people of great seniority as I have said, that the process by which people determine their vote is that they empty their diaries, clear their social lives and spend a full four weeks reading every leaflet, considering every proposition, listening to every programme, weighing up the arguments and being influenced by the precise balance on every programme of the political views expressed. That is not the case. I am humble enough to know that 90% of the people who voted for me last May do not have the first clue who I am and that 90% of them will not have the first clue who I am when in five, 10 or 15 years’ time I leave this place. They will never have had the first clue who I am or any interest in that subject, and all power to them.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that our constituents elect us to use our considered judgments on the big issues of the day, and if we are to have a referendum, let us do it in a way that ensures that we get it right?
Nick Boles
I always defer to my hon. Friend, and in particular on the question whether we are right, here and now, to deliberate the issues. I cannot say that it is my idea of fun, but it is what we are here to do, and it is right that we should do it. However, does that mean that we should therefore expect the people to go through a similar process in answering a simple question about a voting system? I do not think that we should.
It is revealing when some Opposition Members talk about the lack of consultation in the other nations of the United Kingdom. They never refer to the opinions of their people. They talk about—I quote the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson)—there having been no consultation with the stakeholders and about political opinion. To me, that sounds as though we are talking about elites.
Mr MacNeil
Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the Scottish Parliament is the most democratic forum that represents the opinions of the Scottish people?
Nick Boles
I am second to no one in this place, even to the hon. Gentleman, in my respect for the Scottish Parliament. I am a Conservative who always believed that we should have had a Scottish Parliament, and I am delighted that we have one. However, I hold the Scottish Parliament in as much contempt as I do all our political elites, in that we do not necessarily reflect the interests, concerns and priorities of the people whom we represent when we discuss politics itself and how elections are conducted.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Is the hon. Gentleman’s argument that politicians are not good at deferring to the people when they argue about politics? That is not exactly a case for saying that politicians should campaign in elections on the day when the electorate are choosing the democratic process that gives them their power of choice in the future.
Nick Boles
Absolutely not. That is actually the contrary argument. The argument should be that if somebody can present me with evidence that people other than politicians, stakeholders, returning officers and anyone involved in all the other bureaucratic paraphernalia of getting ourselves these jobs would prefer—
Naomi Long
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The evidence that I presented during my contribution was that when more than one election is happening on the same day, people often turn up at polling stations with the wrong identification because they are getting conflicting bits of information through the post and are often unable to cast their votes. That issue matters to my constituents. This is not about electoral elites, but about pensioners in my constituency who trek to the polling station and cannot actually vote.
Nick Boles
I have a lot of respect for the hon. Lady’s point. All I say to her is that it should be possible to iron out those issues. Why different forms of identification are necessary for different elections is beyond me. I was in the Select Committee when we interviewed the head of the Electoral Commission, and she confirmed that while those are challenges, they are manageable challenges and that there is therefore no objection.
Dr Julian Lewis
My hon. Friend is not only charming, but courteous in giving way so graciously. May I ask him to address the specific objections put forward in the debate, not least one that is completely unaffected by his point about whether people make up their minds quickly or whether they need a long period of time to decide on these issues? Will he address the matter of differential turnout caused by different types of elections being held or not held on the same day?
Even if I accepted my hon. Friend’ point that people will make up their minds in exactly the same way with a long period of consultation or a short period of consultation, the fact is that what matters is whether they will go to the polls and cast their votes. By holding the referendum on the day when there are important elections in some parts of the country, less important elections in others and no elections in still others, we will get differential, unfair and skewed results.
Nick Boles
I am surprised that my hon. Friend has made that argument, because he is a doughty defender of freedom and democratic rights. Everybody in this country—in all the countries that make up this country— will have an identical democratic right to cast their vote in the referendum or not. We should not judge whether they want to or whether the campaigns will motivate them to. We already have differential turnout across general elections. So long as people have an identical right, it is all that matters.
I have detained hon. Members for far too long—
Mr Jenkin
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making this speech, because it is illuminating. We have the new politics, and I think that we are hearing the new elitism: we do not mind how ill informed electors may be or how difficult it is for ordinary electors to hear a clear argument—it does not matter, because we know that they are not interested and that we will just do what we want. Is my hon. Friend not describing that new elitism?
Nick Boles
I defer to my hon. Friend on elitism, a subject on which he is a great expert. However, calling people “ordinary”, and saying that if they do not have four weeks of a constant barrage of information on a particular subject they will be ill informed sounds pretty elitist to me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman’s argument now boils down to his belief that we should not be wasting three hours—he said four hours, but actually we have been going for only three, although it may feel like four—on all this, because we have not spoken to our electors and asked them what they think. I am sure that most of my electors in the Rhondda would say that they do not want any messing around with the constitution in this particular way, so the hon. Gentleman’s argument is basically against the whole Bill.
Nick Boles
I hate to have words put in my mouth by anyone, let alone the hon. Gentleman. However, he is close to my conclusion, and I will now get to it. It is that most people, if asked, would say, “Ask us once a year what we want and what we think about how we want to be run, and then just get out of our lives and get on with it.” That is why I welcome legislation that says that once a year we will have a general election, national elections or a referendum.
I take an even more radical position. I would have, as in America, a date that everybody knows. People there can say what the dates of the presidential, congressional, mayoral or gubernatorial elections will be in 40 years’ time. Everybody knows when elections are, which is when they start to look at the questions.
Nick Boles
It is every two years, actually, because there are mid-terms.
That is the time when all this should be done. It is the right way to conduct elections and to handle these matters, because it responds to how people think about the issues, rather than politicians.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I am grateful to you, Mr Hoyle, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I say “debate”, but until the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) spoke, it was not much of a debate, but more of a monologue: every speaker, apart from the Minister, had the same opinion in support of the amendments that would move the date of the referendum from the date scheduled in the legislation.
The hon. Gentleman talked eloquently about the people, and politicians, talking to each other. I have no doubt that none of this debate this afternoon and evening will get any coverage at all anywhere in the main news media. I doubt very much whether it will get any coverage in the press tomorrow. Frankly, people are not interested in the subject. That is the reality. If we were really honest about it and were following a new agenda and new politics, we would be saying that what we are discussing is not on people’s minds at all: they are far more interested in the economy, jobs and the wars going on, with soldiers dying and all the rest of it. They are not interested in our spending days upon days debating this subject, which is of interest only to certain politicians in certain parties.
Individual Electoral Registration
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend as puzzled as I am by the argument of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), which appears to be that we cannot adopt fully equal constituencies until we have dealt with the inadequacies of the register over which his party presided, and we cannot do anything to introduce the improvements in the register at any more than a glacial pace? Is not this obstructionism the real attempt to use the electoral system for partisan advantage?
Mr Harper
It seemed a bit churlish to point out in my statement that if there were problems with the state of the electoral register, it was not the parties on this side of the House that had been in government for the past 13 years, which is, I think, the point that my hon. Friend was making. Let me make it clear that we want to improve the state of the register, but the fact that it is not perfect should not mean that we cannot continue with the boundary review. The last Government conducted a boundary review, and we are conducting the review of the register on exactly the same basis.
It is worth pointing out that our electoral register contains the names of about 91% or 92% of eligible voters. In that regard, we compare very well with other comparable democracies. However, we are not complacent, and we want to improve our registration levels still further.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Straw
I accept that entirely. Constitutional legislation is always complicated and we should always seek consensus on it. I have to say—I believe Members know this—that I can think of plenty of occasions when I brought forward constitutional legislation and then had to take it away again. With the single, terrible exception of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill—for which I have already abjectly apologised as it was a dreadful piece of legislation—I have always both provided sufficient time and quite often changed proposed legislation addressing this complicated territory in the light of what was said in this House or the other place in Committee and the Chamber.
To consider why we have ended up in this situation, we have to return to a point made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) in an intervention on the Deputy Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman echoed a comment made last week by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who said of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that people might have more respect for the Government if they admitted that it was about party advantage. There would have been greater respect for the Government over the timing and abject drafting of the Bill before us if the Deputy Prime Minister had said, “Yes, we brought this forward—and the Prime Minister has stood on his head on this—because we did a deal for a variety of reasons which I shall explain. That is the price the Prime Minister paid for this bit of the deal, and we are rushing it through for internal reasons.” The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex was absolutely right to say—he can correct me if I get a single preposition in the wrong place—that the Bill smacks of gerrymandering the constitution in favour of the coalition, which is what I heard him say, and that it was legislation on the hoof. That is true. The Deputy Prime Minister should have taken his time and invited the other parties into discussion, sought the advice of the Liaison Committee and others, and come forward with a much better proposition.
Mr Straw
If I may first make a little more progress, I will then give way to both hon. Gentlemen.
The irony will not be lost on the House that had the previous Labour Administration acted in such a fashion, Members of the current Government parties would rightly have expressed outrage, and Liberal Democrat Members would have done so in unbearably sanctimonious and pious terms. Everybody knows that to be the case.
Professor Robert Hazell of University College London’s constitution unit has said:
“The legislation could still be introduced with cross-party support, if the government is willing to take it slowly. That is what the government is seeking to do with reform of the House of Lords”—
I commend the Government’s approach on that—
“It should adopt the same approach with this Bill.”
Notwithstanding the fact that the Bill has now been introduced, my very strong advice to the Deputy Prime Minister is that he should take a long time before bringing it back before the House so that the Select Committee can have a look at it. If he wants examples of Bills just sitting around for some time while Ministers have repented at leisure of mistakes they and their colleagues have made and regrouped to bring back something better, I will provide him with them.
As we know, the Bill’s primary purpose is not high-minded; the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex was correct about that. Its effect may be welcome, but its primary purpose is to serve as a form of constitutional handcuffs to prevent either of the coalition parties from assassinating the other. This is, indeed, a partnership characterised by paranoia.
Nick Boles
The right hon. Gentleman criticises my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for not giving time for consultation, yet even before the Bill was published he had taken on board concerns expressed on both sides of the House about a specific provision relating to early Dissolution and radically changed his proposal. It seems to me that he is listening much more intently than the right hon. Gentleman ever did when he was proposing constitutional reforms.
Mr Straw
I was just checking with my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) whether the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) was a Conservative or a Liberal Democrat, because I was very confused after this morning’s pamphlet, but I gather from my hon. Friend that he is both. I am going to buy and distribute copies of his pamphlet in all Liberal wards—there are none in my constituency, but there are some in the borough. I shall dish out copies of the pamphlet in the borough, because one of my views about this coalition is that it made every bit of sense for the Conservative party and was total madness for the Liberal Democrats. With a little luck, the Liberal Democrats will go the same way as their predecessor party did in the early 1920s as a result of exactly the same process.
The reason why the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister had to change from the abjectly partisan proposal of 55% was that it was too obvious, since they had 56% of the votes. They must have thought that we were all stupid. He had to change that before he introduced the Bill because he would not have had a dog’s chance of getting a Second Reading had that ridiculous and outrageous proposal remained. It was survival that led to the change, not high principle.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
This has been a fascinating five hours of debate, and I have learned a great deal. I have been vastly entertained, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), but I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled. I thought that I would hear the great champions of parliamentary privilege and parliamentary sovereignty—
Nick Boles
One of the great champions has not been called, but he has certainly intervened many times, and we have heard from other great champions, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I thought that I would hear them make an argument for giving Parliament even more control over matters as vital to our democracy as the timing of elections, but no. We have been given an object lesson in that great phrase “looking a gift horse in the mouth”.
I just wonder what would have happened to the Government if they had come to the House with a proposal to abolish elections altogether or to abolish the role of the Speaker in deciding whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be dragged here to answer an urgent question. Imagine what our reaction would have been then. I listen to the criticism that has been made—that the proposal is somehow fragmentary and piecemeal—and I ask myself whether those critics have any education in the history of our constitution at all. I am the least historically educated person I know, but I know that this country has only ever made change fragmentarily, in a piecemeal fashion and for naked partisan political interests. We even invented an entire new Church—the leader of the Church from which we separated ourselves is about to come to this country, and we welcome him very much—just to enable our sovereign to marry somebody whom he fancied rather more than his wife at the time.
That was just the starting point for a whole generation of constitutional change, so let us not deny the value of fragmentary and piecemeal constitutional change. Let us instead take advances when we get them, and if they are in the interest of the Government proposing them, let us be grateful for the fact that that interest is so well aligned with the interest of this House.
Nick Boles
I have always found it easy to disagree with academics on almost any subject, and I disagree with Professor Blackburn on that.
My hon. Friend’s question leads me neatly to my next point. With much more trepidation, I have to say that I respectfully disagree with what the Clerk of the House said in his contribution to our evidence about the risks posed by the Bill. I recognise that I am probably the least qualified person here to comment on orders of this House, and on the risks of judicial review that the proposed statute might create, because I am not a lawyer, a long-standing MP or a constitutional historian. However, it seemed inadequate for the Clerk of the House to suggest putting this fundamental provision into the statutes of the House—the orders of the House, as I believe they are called—because surely the House can do away with those orders on a relative whim.
The one advantage of the statute that the Government are proposing is that it will have to make its way through the other House. Any further changes will also therefore have to make their way through the other House, and we have a commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister that we will see full-scale reform of that other House before the next election, to which the Bill would apply.
Mr George Howarth
The hon. Gentleman is making a witty and amusing speech, but does he really believe that the courts inevitably act in a totally rational way in all circumstances? My experience of them, certainly in matters of this kind, is that they can be very capricious.
Nick Boles
I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point—I should like to call him my right hon. Friend; I am very keen on people joining the coalition, as Members might know—but I am not sure whether the courts are any more capricious than Members of this House. Is that a terrible thing to say?
I am troubled by the proposal of the Clerk of the House, and I fear that those on my own side who advance it are doing so not because they really think that he has a better way to secure fixed-term Parliaments but because they do not believe in fixed terms, and they want to undermine the Bill. If it is going to be brought in, they want it to be introduced in as weak a form as possible. So let us not be deluded by that argument.
I want to turn briefly to the argument about election dates. I shall approach the subject with great deference to those who represent parts of the other nations of the United Kingdom, because they of course must be the ones who speak for their constituents. However, in the United States—a place where individual states have much more power and at least as much sense of their own independence and individual character—all the elections always happen on the same day. In that fine democracy, they happen on the first Thursday in November, either every four years or every two years. In the United States, people would consider it a constitutional outrage if elections were to happen on any other day.
If elections were held on different days, minor elections—I do not venture to suggest that elections to the devolved Assemblies are minor; I am talking about any that people thought were minor—might be used to express an opinion about a major subject, such as the economic policy of the UK Government. It is only by having elections on the same day that people can be guaranteed an ability to express their opinion on every issue that matters to them, be it local, regional or pertaining to their state, their governor, their mayor or the Government of the day. The same applies to referendums, which is why I also support the idea of their being held on the same day. I venture to suggest that hon. Members should really question whether they are assisting the independence of their local elections, and the autonomy of the decision making on the issues in those elections, by proposing separate election dates. I fear that they might achieve the reverse.
Mark Durkan
The hon. Gentleman referred to the United States of America, where there are no rules on media balance and supposedly no statutory protections for parties in the broadcast media or anywhere else, and where massive amounts of money are spent. The electoral climate in the United States is entirely different from ours. If he is suggesting that elections to our devolved Parliament and Assemblies and to this Parliament should be conducted in the way they are in America, what does he think the turnout would be?
Nick Boles
If people have to go to the polls only once and have to take seven decisions that will affect every single part of government, I suggest that that will make them more likely to vote in the “lower” elections than they would if those elections took place on their own, particularly when people might be busy, have to take the kids to school and get to work. I suspect that the turnout would advance, but let me make it clear that the Deputy Prime Minister has said that he will want to understand the concerns and that the final decision will be made in consultation with the devolved Assemblies.
In the remaining time available, let me deal with one suggestion—for an amendment to the Bill—made by the Select Committee, of which I am lucky enough to be a member. I hope that the Government will consider it in further stages. The suggestion was that, after an extraordinary or exceptional Dissolution, to avoid any jiggery-pokery or any attempt to engineer a Dissolution to the benefit of one party, the term of whatever Government came in after that Dissolution would be just for the balance of the normal term. If the extraordinary Dissolution came after three years, there would be only two years left for the succeeding Government. I think that might go some way to reinforce the Bill’s intention to ensure that a Dissolution is not done in a frivolous, arbitrary or partisan way.
In conclusion, let me say that that is the only amendment that I would propose and that I propose it in the spirit of improvement rather than criticism. I very much hope that Members will see fit to support this fine Bill.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
We have about eight minutes left, with two speakers to go. I call Richard Shepherd.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be happy to meet the hon. Lady, whom we should all welcome to this House. Presumably, she has come here to keep an eye on her brother and to see what he has been up to. Let me just say this about the apology tour. I think there is something quite refreshing about a Minister who makes a mistake, comes to the Dispatch Box and makes an apology. [Interruption.] They have got their hands in the air—the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) has got his hand in the air. Can anyone put their hand up if they ever remember him apologising for anything, ever? He can start by apologising for the fact that for the last three years, he has been telling us that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) is actually the best thing since white sliced bread, and now we are being told that he is mad, bad and dangerous.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
The BBC Trust has described BBC 1 and BBC 2 as boring. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the gaiety of the nation would be immeasurably enhanced by the televising of a 17-part psychodrama called “New Labour”, with Lord Mandelson playing himself?
Political and Constitutional Reform
Nick Boles Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I remind the hon. Lady that we all fought the last general election on a boundary review based on the electoral register of 10 years ago. The system is deeply, deeply imperfect. What we are trying to do—and it did not happen in 13 years under the Labour Government—is hold a boundary review, without threatening the identity of Newcastle or any other area. We want it to be done quickly and for it to be established on the simple principle of fairness, with all votes being of equal worth wherever people live in the United Kingdom.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) is an excellent constituency MP, thereby demonstrating that he is fully capable of representing 86,000 constituents, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, and that all of us should be capable of doing the same?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I happen to agree that if the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) can do it with a larger constituency than that envisaged in our Bill, any of us can.