Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Patrick Grady and William Wragg

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for the introduction where he described me as being cheeky faced. It will stun the Opposition and surprise the Government that I will be voting enthusiastically with the Government in the Lobby later, so clearly my re-education is having the desired effect.

I rise to speak against the Lords amendment and in favour of the Government’s motion to disagree. I view the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 not through rose-tinted spectacles as a great beacon of constitutional progress, but as a politically expedient measure that helped to secure a coalition in which the junior partner feared being unceremoniously dumped part way through an electoral term.

The lesson of the passage of this Bill thus far, and indeed of the work of the Joint Committee and of my Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, is that the genie cannot simply be put back in the bottle. I slightly disagree with the Minister, because by removing a prerogative power, the 2011 Act made it impossible to return completely to the status quo ante, hence the need for the Bill where we are codifying Dissolution for the first time. That cannot easily be argued against.

At the heart of the Lords amendment is whether the House should maintain a veto on Dissolution and the calling of an election, and I believe that it should not. It is for the monarch to dissolve the House following a request—I emphasise “a request”, unlike the early drafting of the Bill, which suggested that Her Majesty be advised to dissolve—from Her Majesty’s Government.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Why is it good enough for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly to operate on fixed terms but not this place?

[Mr Wragg]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to be intemperate about the difference between this House and the other Parliaments of the United Kingdom, which I will resist entirely. Places evolve through their own conventions and those Parliaments are doing exactly that. There is no need for universality; surely he would argue that the beauty of devolution is that it allows for difference. If he wanted uniformity, however, he would essentially support the United Kingdom.

The impetus for the Bill came from the logjam of the previous Parliament.

It is important to note where the impetus came for this Lords amendment, because it is a symptom of the mistrust that followed the Prorogation that never was, in 2019.