Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I disagree with my hon. Friend. Even if we successfully push our proposals through in their current form, and we have the first set of such elections in 2015, most Members of the other place will still be unelected. Secondly, regardless of how many Members of the other place are elected, we are talking about primacy. Effectively, the amendments would move power away from this House to the other place. Whatever one’s views about House of Lords reform, I picked up clearly from our earlier debate that most Members of this place want it to be clear that this place has primacy over their lordships’ House. The amendments, perhaps inadvertently, would lead to a different situation.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Under the Bill, a large number of Members of the House must vote for a Dissolution. The person who decides whether there is a general election is, therefore, the Leader of the Opposition, because if the Government and the Opposition want a Dissolution, it happens. Under the amendments, the House of Lords would effectively be taking power away from the Leader of the Opposition, who would be in a position to provide the numbers for a Dissolution.

[Mr Harper]

I agree. The fact remains that we are taking powers away from this House and giving them to the other place. It has been clear to me from our earlier debates that that view is not widely shared in this House, and indeed, interestingly, it does not appear to be widely shared in the other place. As I observed from careful reading of the report of the debates there, many speakers were very concerned about the primacy of this House, which was good of them. They said that they did not want to damage it in any way. Plainly their support for the amendments was inadvertent; they may not have thought through the consequences fully. I therefore think it would be sensible for this House to disagree with their lordships, and to give them an opportunity to reconsider their decision and return the Bill to the form in which it left this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not, as I am keen to conclude my remarks.

The Minister asked whether both Houses should decide. That goes to the heart of the matter. Yes, we believe that both Houses should decide, but if the Minister had wanted to change that, he could have tabled an amendment in lieu of the Lords amendment, which could have said that just as in the provisions on an early general election, there would be a vote in one House—this House. There could have been a vote in this House on whether it was a fixed-term Parliament. The Government’s response tries to bind a future Parliament in an inappropriate way. I think that is a mistake, so we will support the Lords amendment.

[Mr Syms]

It is this House that determines who the Government are. This is the majority House. As we know, the upper House is a hereditary or semi-hereditary Chamber. Even under the proposals for election, it will not be the majority House. It is therefore proper and responsible that this Chamber should determine whether there should be a fixed-term Parliament. That is not the business of the upper House. The decision has to be made in this House.

The only question to debate is whether it is the Prime Minister who makes the decision or the House. Historically, it has been the Prime Minister. We have had a constitutional change. I am a conservative with a small c and I do not generally like change, but one has to acknowledge the fact that in order to command a majority in the House, the measure is part of the deal. That is a good reason for doing it. If that was not part of the deal, one would not necessarily be in government and doing many other good things for the country under our programme.

We all know that Prime Ministers lose the confidence of the House. There are occasions when Prime Ministers are challenged, and one of the things that bolsters unpopular Prime Ministers is the threat of Dissolution. It is up to them. They can throw the cards up in the air and call a Dissolution, even if they lose the confidence of their own party. That has always been one reason why Prime Ministers have stayed in Downing street when there was good reason for moving them out and having a vote of no confidence in a political party.

The other factor, which is one of the different features of modern politics, is that there are now more parties in the House—we have the Greens in this Parliament—more of a fracture in the current political system and more regional parties. It will probably be more difficult in the longer term for a party always to be confident of a majority in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is right. Coalitions may be more a part of the future than some of us who prefer majority government would like to think.

The Government’s position is tailored to that situation, so I will support what they are doing today. Circumstances have changed, and if one has to make a decision, it is better that political parties and the usual channels in the House determine a Dissolution than an unpopular Prime Minister who may have a different agenda from others in the Chamber.

[Mark Durkan]

I am delighted to be able to agree with the thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) in relation to the key effect of the Lords amendments, which would extend the power of the House of Lords as it now stands and in whatever future shape it takes, by making sure that the upper House was in a position of dual control with this House on whether there was a fixed-term Parliament. We know from sentiments already expressed in that House—echoed many times in this House—that there is opposition to serious proposals on Lords reform, and in those circumstances I would certainly not indulge any extension of their powers or ability to trespass on the primacy of this House, which is exactly what the amendments would do.

A number of weeks ago the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) rightly lampooned the democratic credentials of the other Chamber, and yet now he wants to extend its control over the democratic proprieties of this Chamber and over whether there is certainty on when there will be a general election. I fully agree with him that those of us who believe in fixed-term Parliaments face a predicament with the Bill, because many of us believe that four years is the natural term for a Parliament. It was the natural term that this Parliament chose for the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments, and it was right that they were comfortable with it, but because Parliament is opting for five years, those assemblies will also have to shift to five years, which I do not believe is the natural rhythm for fixed terms.

Nevertheless, it would be a bit much for someone like me to use the fact that I believe in four-year terms, in addition to believing in fixed-term Parliaments, to vote for rupturing the nature of the Bill. As someone who is proudly in the Irish Labour tradition, I have great regard for Jim Larkin, who once said that the purpose of politics was to keep narrowing the gap between what is and what ought to be. I believe in fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, the only choice we now have is five-year terms. In future, I hope that other parties will be elected with a mandate to alter that fixed term to four years and that future Parliaments will do that, but I believe that we will reach that stage quicker by voting for fixed-term Parliaments now and amending the length of the term in future. If instead we get to the meaningless point of having a Bill that is a fixed-term Parliaments Bill only in name, rather like the two-hour dry cleaners that tells customers to come back next Tuesday because “two-hour dry cleaners” is just the name of the shop, that Bill will not fulfil its purpose in any real way.

In relation to the amendments, there is a curious idea that both Chambers would decide on whether there would be a fixed term, but there is uncertainty on when those resolutions would be laid and who would lay them. The references to the Prime Minister in some of the amendments relate only to moving the date of an election back by up to two months, and I think that some people have misread that and think that it means that the resolution would have to come from the Prime Minister, but it would not. It seems that we would be left with a curious situation in which anyone could seek at any time to move such a resolution in either Chamber and create various difficulties that would simply add to the political mess and to the uncertainty on whether we have fixed terms.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda in his criticism of the Bill’s provenance and the fact that it came about not to fix the term of Parliament, but to fix this Government. It was intended to create a fixed-term Government and a fix for this Parliament. For that reason it is wrong and it is bad. However, the amendments would have the effect of prescribing legislation that would have every Parliament begin with a Government using their majority to fix the term in a way that suited them. He said that any Government worth their salt would do that early on in the term, and presuming that an Opposition worth their salt would oppose it, we are left asking what the point would be and what such legislation would achieve, other than an unedifying procedure each time a recently elected Government appear to fix the terms on which they will govern which the Opposition resist. The whole idea of a fixed-term Parliament Bill is to ensure that there is no political speculation or contention on those issues. Looking at the nature of some of the other clauses and amendments, I do not believe that the Prime Minister is ceding as much power as some hon. Members have said.

This is an unusual and uncomfortable experience for me, but I concur with the Government on these Lords amendments. Unfortunately, on this occasion I have to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda while fully agreeing with his basic, continuing underlying criticism of some of the background to the Bill.