United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I am glad to follow the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), because he gave what I thought was his version of Tony Blair’s Chicago speech of 1999. Where Tony Blair had five criteria, the hon. Gentleman seems to have four, but the consequence would still be the interventionist view that I know he has held for many years.
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be so pessimistic about the consequences of what is happening in Libya. None of us can predict what will happen. He is quite right that the Gaddafi regime may persist for some time, in some form or other. He is also possibly right about the alternative outcome of partition, which other hon. Members have mentioned. Another view is that we could be moving towards what might be described as “Somalia with oil”, which would be the worst possible outcome. Therefore, we in Europe should be particularly concerned about what is happening in Libya, because it is geographically on the borders of the European Union. Libya is not remote or a long way away; it is of vital, direct, national and European interest to us.
In that context, I want to praise the work of our diplomats in the UN, who have worked hand in glove with French diplomats in the UN to get the Security Council resolution. What has been done through co-operation between Britain and France, as the two European permanent members of the Security Council, is vital. Unfortunately, the Defence Secretary has left his place, but at least the Foreign Secretary is here. [Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary will know that I have given him his correct designation today, unlike when he appeared before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs last week.
I wanted to ask the Defence Secretary about co-operation between the UK and France on the defence front, because clearly there is a new understanding and agreement. If, as is expected, the lead of the operation is transferred from the United States, there will be interesting questions about where it should go. Turkey appears to be blocking any development of a NATO-based command. What will happen then? Is an alternative arrangement possible? Clearly the European Union is not capable of performing that role and, given Germany’s position, would not be likely to do so. What will happen to control of the forces that are brought together? There will be a continuing US role, even though it wants to step back, and those forces will include other European states, the Qataris and others who will enter the coalition. Britain and France will be working at the core of that coalition, but we need to know how that will work in practice. Perhaps we could have an indication of that in the winding-up speeches.
In the time left to me, I want to concentrate on what the development of the Security Council resolution means for the future of international co-operation. There were four groups among the 15 members of the Security Council. There was Britain and France, which clearly saw early that an intervention had to be made to stop the massacres and the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Libya. Then there was the United States, which clearly saw the same thing but, because of internal, institutional problems—and, I suspect, because the Obama Administration rightly want to take a multilateral approach to international politics, in contrast to the predecessor, Bush Administration—did not want to play the lead role.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Given the previous US regime’s role, does my hon. Friend accept that if the US President had been involved, that might have hindered our ability to get a resolution?
Mike Gapes
I do accept that, but I think the US Administration left it pretty late before finally making up their mind to move. It would have been helpful if the prevarication had not gone on for quite so long, but in principle I agree with my hon. Friend.
Then there was a third group, made up of countries in the Security Council that supported the action, even though many of the countries in their region were unhappy. Three African member states—South Africa, Gabon and Nigeria—voted for action, despite the fact that the African Union collectively has not taken the same position. That is significant. There was also Lebanon, representing the only Arab voice in the Security Council.
Then we have the fourth group, made up of China and Russia—traditionally, one of them would have vetoed the resolution, but they chose not to—and Germany, which, as we all know, has its own national view and history. Germany does not wish to put its forces in harm’s way and has always been reluctant to take a role in any international involvement. Indeed, I remember the angst in the SPD—the German Social Democratic party—even when it debated sending people to peacekeeping missions outside Europe. Then there are Brazil and India, which take a more traditionalist view about non-intervention, which is similar to that of China and Russia.
My point is that, because of the responsibility to protect, which was agreed in 2005 and 2006, and because of the way this debate has been framed, the UN has passed a watershed. The interventions to defend the Kurds in Iraq in 1991 and 1992 were made without a Security Council resolution. The intervention in Kosovo was also made without one, as was the intervention in Iraq, but today we have a new approach, and I hope that it is a model for the future.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
It is sobering to think that, as we debate this motion tonight and allied aircraft are yet again deployed in action, there are inevitably men and women, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, who will not be going home tonight. They may, unfortunately, be allied air personnel; they will almost certainly be Libyan military personnel; and tragically they may very well be Libyan civilians who left home this morning to go to work but, for whatever reason, will not be returning.
I know that the Treasury Benchers and the Opposition Front Benchers take their responsibilities incredibly seriously: I know that the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and his colleagues do not relish, or seek jingoism in, their actions and the operations on which they must decide; and I know that the House recognises that my right hon. Friends the Members for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) seek to carry out the duty of an Opposition, which is to cast a critical eye over the actions of the Government, and will not pursue political opportunism, because that is not in order in this debate.
Much has been said about why we are doing this, and Members on both sides of the House have questioned the wisdom of it. I came into politics because 20 years ago this summer the west stood by and took no action when Yugoslavia tore itself apart. We saw footage from Srebrenica, Sarajevo and other places of the massacre of men and boys, women and children, and the west did nothing to stop that. I cannot possibly imagine what it must have been like to live in that country during those times. I therefore very much welcome the fact that the Government have stepped up and provided some leadership in this action. The Secretary of State will know that Opposition Members stand willing to provide support to the Government in pursuing that course.
I was very lucky to make my maiden speech on the same day as the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), whom I have found inspiring over the past 10 months, both as a colleague on the Defence Committee and as a speaker in the House. I hope, if he will pardon my saying so, that in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time we do not have a situation where there are more Members like him who will have had to go in after the west did not take action to pick up the pieces of its indecisiveness. I will support the motion, with some reservations about casualties, but pleased that the west is taking action.
I will not speak about the defence review, which has already been covered, beyond saying that we will return to it in a future debate. However, I urge the Secretary of State to keep under review the issue of the warships and aircraft that we have. I pose two questions. First, will he give an absolute guarantee that the operational costs will be met from the Treasury reserve, not from departmental budgets? Secondly, will he give a guarantee that work is now under way between the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence on the reconstruction of Libya once the action has ceased?
Japan and the Middle East
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend asks an important question. What we have done so far has focused on the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, where Britain has led the way in supplying tents and blankets and in flying people back home to Egypt, because we want to ensure that a bad humanitarian situation does not become a humanitarian crisis. His point about access to western Libya is vital. Humanitarian aid agencies do not have access to all areas; they absolutely should have, and the Libyan authorities should see to that straight away.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Leaving aside the juvenile and puerile crack from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), the Prime Minister will know that there is a cross-party consensus on the need for a no-fly zone. Given that time is of the essence, on how many occasions has he personally spoken to President Obama and on how many occasions has the Foreign Secretary spoken to Secretary of State Clinton?
The Prime Minister
The Foreign Secretary has probably lost count of the number of times he has spoken to Secretary of State Clinton—they seem to have an almost permanent telephone special relationship. I spoke to President Obama about the situation last week, and I have had a number of conversations with him about it. Crucially, now that we have a National Security Council and a National Security Adviser—which slightly mirrors the Americans’ arrangements—our teams have almost daily conversations, so we are totally up to date with each other’s thinking. We want the US to focus on what is happening in Libya and on what we need to do as an international community.
Libya and the Middle East
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am not aware of that, but I think that the full terms of the deal in the desert need to be made clear. Then, those Opposition Members who are calling for the word “sorry” might like to issue it themselves.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), does the Prime Minister accept that members of his Government need to be very careful before making statements about dictators fleeing their countries, as we have seen murder on the streets of Tripoli as a result of the Foreign Secretary’s foolish remarks?
The Prime Minister
Let us be clear: murder on the streets of Tripoli is the responsibility of Colonel Gaddafi and his murderous regime. For Opposition Members to try to make some fake political point on this basis is truly pathetic.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Harper
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, he knows as well as I do, and the view is shared by everyone in the other place, that there was an organised filibustering campaign, which is unprecedented in the way in which the other place conducts its business and of great concern to all those who value its self-regulating nature. That view is not only held by me, but shared across the other House. On his second point, we propose that there will definitely be some public hearings, and there will be up to five in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and each of the English regions. We will allow the boundary commissions to use their discretion to decide where they hold the hearings so that they can reflect the issues that people will raise.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the Bill, as proposed by the Government and as it left this place, contained no provision for an oral process at all. The Government listened carefully to the proposals made in the other place and brought forward those changes, which were accepted without Division. He will also know that his colleagues in the other place then suggested effectively taking us back to the very legalistic process. A full debate was held and the other place decided that that was not an appropriate method and that it was content with the public hearings that we proposed.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The Minister has made the outrageous claim that there was filibustering. I attended the debates several times in the early hours of the morning to watch the noble Lords debating the issue and I am surprised that he regards some of his Liberal Democrat colleagues in the other place, such as Lord Tyler and others, who tabled amendments which were then accepted in the early hours, as having filibustered. Does he think that it was only Labour peers who filibustered, or does he make that claim just because he was forced to wait for his Bill?
Mr Harper
There is a general acceptance in the other place, not only among Conservative peers and those supporting the Government parties, but from many Cross Benchers, that the behaviour, not of the House of Lords but of a small number of former Labour MPs who have gone to the other end of the building, was unacceptable.
Mr Harper
This debate also took place in the other place and it was content with our proposals. I do not wish to speculate on the hon. Gentleman’s longevity.
Amendment (b) to Lords amendment 27 would require the arrangements for the review into the reduction of constituencies to be put in place between 1 March and 1 November this year. We do not agree with the Opposition’s thinking in that amendment, because to assess the effect of the reduction in the number of constituencies we must have seen the effects; we should not speculate about them. We think that the Cross-Bench proposal to have the review after the next election is much more sensible.
We have made a number of more minor, technical amendments, including an amendment to ensure that existing legislative powers to change the date of the poll for Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly elections are not affected by the provisions on the combination of polls on 5 May. That amendment was made in the other place, but in response to concerns raised in this House by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). We have made amendments to apply the Electoral Commission’s new civil sanctioning powers for new offences relating to loans; to give the chief counting officer the power to be reimbursed from the public purse for expenses that she incurs because it is economically beneficial to the public for her to do so—that is the debate that we had on the money resolution; to ensure that a single definition of registration officer applies throughout part 1; to place an explicit obligation on the chief counting officer for the referendum to take steps to facilitate co-operation between regional counting officers, counting officers and registration officers; and finally, to provide that an elector who registers or who is already registered for a postal vote at one of the polls combined with the referendum, and who is entitled to vote in the referendum, is automatically registered for a postal vote for the referendum.
Thomas Docherty
Going back to the point that the Minister made as he rattled through that list, and to the debate that we had a short time ago, will he now confirm, as he did not take the opportunity before, that the Secretary of State will write to returning officers in Scotland to instruct them to begin the count for the Scottish Parliament election as soon as the polls close, and not to delay it?
Mr Harper
In response to that debate, which—from memory—was about whether to include in the Bill a power to direct those counting the votes, I said that that would be out of scope and I confirmed that that was the case. If the hon. Gentleman is right in what he says about some returning officers in Scotland, there is nothing in the Bill that has caused them to take that decision. It is a decision that they have taken of their own volition. Some returning officers in Scotland have confirmed that they will count overnight and that there is no problem in doing so. Some returning officers have said that they do not propose to do so, but that is nothing to do with the combination of the polls. It is to do with their judgment about how they want to conduct the count.
As I was saying, similar provision about the combination of polls and postal votes has been made for those registered for other forms of absent vote. I believe that the raft of changes made to the Bill, which the Government have accepted, demonstrate that we have been willing to listen and engage constructively with both Houses of Parliament and to agree to all the proposed changes to our proposals that we believe were merited.
Mr Harper
The boundary commissions will have to draw up a scheme of constituencies and they will have examine the entire country. In some constituencies there may not be much need to vary from the quota, perhaps because there may not be many ties to take account of. However, there will be such a need in other areas, which is why this proposal to allow a much wider band would be very damaging. If they allow more flexibility in some areas, it will be taken away from others. That is why we want a consistent rule across the United Kingdom.
Thomas Docherty
I wish to clarify something that I have been asked about several times. Have the Government given any guidance to the boundary commission as to whether it will work from south to north across the country or from north to south? The direction will have a significant impact on the shaping of the constituencies, so I genuinely ask the question.
Mr Harper
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there will be one scheme for the whole area. We have suggested in the Bill that the Boundary Commission for England does this by region. The regional boundaries are not absolute and it is able to propose constituencies that cross those boundaries, but given the size of England it seemed sensible to give the Boundary Commission at least a starting point from which to work. The rules that will apply are in the Bill and it would not be appropriate for the Government to try to influence how it conducts the review. If the Government were to do so, the hon. Gentleman would be one of the first to object.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful for that clarification. Has the Minister had any discussions about whether the Boundary Commission for Scotland is minded to start this from the English-Scottish border and work north? Alternatively, having exempted the highlands and islands—I will not repeat the argument about that—will it work southwards? The direction will significantly affect the shape of these new constituencies.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman was asking two questions. On the first, I have not had those discussions with the boundary commissions and I do not think it would be appropriate to do so. On the second, I am not sure that the direction would make the difference that he suggests, but he should put his question to the boundary commissions, rather than the Government.
Mr Harper
The amendments concern the effect on the Isle of Wight of the Government’s proposals for votes to have more equal weight, which has been a subject of much debate both inside and outside Parliament. I know that myself, having visited the Isle of Wight at the invitation of its Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), last autumn.
As we said in the earlier debates, the Government believe that the principle of one elector, one vote—or, rather, one vote, one value—is paramount. [Interruption.] I think we all agree with the first proposition. There is consensus on that. It is right that electors across the UK should have an equal say not just in their choice of local representative, but in who form the Government of the day. As I said in the previous debate, for votes to have equal weight in a single-member constituency system, constituencies must contain a broadly equal number of electors.
Although absolute equality would be right in principle if—as was said in a previous debate—we were all desiccated calculating machines, in the real world some flexibility is needed to recognise local circumstances. Exceptions compromise equality, so the Government’s view is that the number of exceptions must be very limited. [Interruption.] Calm down. The Bill presented to the House by the Government provided for only two specific exemptions from the parity rule for two Scottish island constituencies —Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland. The rationale for those exceptions was clear. They are remote island groups not readily combinable with the mainland, and legislation in practice already recognises their unique geographical circumstances.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the Minister, who is always generous with his—with the House’s time. He mentioned the issue of the highlands. Is he not aware that in Scotland there are many islands? I look to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), where there are a large number of islands attached to the mainland. North Ayrshire and Arran also has an island.
Mr Harper
My point was that the exemptions were for remote island groups not readily combinable with the mainland. In the two examples that the hon. Gentleman gives, the islands are already combined with the mainland as a parliamentary constituency. That is a clear distinction. I do not understand the point he makes.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill (Money) (No. 2)
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I should like to return to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), having perhaps given the Minister slightly more time to reflect on the genuinely valid points that my hon. Friend raised. I know that colleagues from other parties were also nodding in agreement when he was raising them.
The returning officers in Scotland are up to the same trick that they were trying to pull before the 2010 general election, when the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) gave a clear instruction to the returning officers that they could not delay the start of the count for that general election in Scotland until the following day.
Let me place the Minister under notice that I shall seek two guarantees from him and the Deputy Leader of the House. The first is that he speaks urgently to the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—I suspect he will have a number of opportunities to speak to them in the Division Lobbies in the next four hours—to get them to set the record straight on the Scotland Office position on the counting. Will the Minister also guarantee—I will take him at his word, as he is an honourable Gentleman—that either he or the Secretary of State will write to the returning officers in Scotland to remind them that they receive a payment for carrying out these duties?
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Does not the hon. Gentleman share my absolute and utter surprise that neither the Secretary of State for Scotland nor the Under-Secretary have yet written to returning officers to get this issue clarified and resolved?
Thomas Docherty
I fear that in some ways I am not surprised, because we have learned over the last nine months that the Secretary of State for Scotland is like Macavity the cat. When it comes to any issue—whether it be the coastguard, defence or anything else—he is posted absent. The hon. Gentleman’s point is valid because the Secretary of State should be writing to returning officers to remind them that they receive an additional payment for carrying out their duties in unsociable hours, so there is no reason for the count not to happen. If the returning officers insist on delaying until the following morning, will the Minister guarantee that those payments will be withdrawn from them and their staff? Why should we pay them for a service that they are not carrying out? Will he also confirm that he will write to returning officers to remind them that, during our Wednesday evening debate on the Standing Order at the end of last year and during the course of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, he gave an explicit guarantee on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government that the count would take place as soon as practically possible—namely, straight after the polls close in Scotland?
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Jacob Rees-Mogg
May I begin by thanking the Minister for the enormous courtesy, good manners and good temper with which he has responded to the many criticisms of the Bill? I, among others, do not think it the best Bill ever to have come before Parliament, but he has invariably answered questions kindly. I also thank the Clerks for warning me that I was, in their terminology, to “open the batting” in this debate, which I might not otherwise have known. As far as cricketing metaphors go, I am probably more of a night watchman than a Geoffrey Boycott, or Somerset’s own Trescothick, but I shall bat on with regard to the Parliament Act 1911 and my new clause in relation to it.
The 1911 Act, as the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) reminded us earlier today, was introduced, broadly, as a temporary measure. The preamble to the Act says:
“whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”,
but “immediately” has now extended to 100 years of failure to introduce a popular rather than an hereditary form, although not all elements of heredity remain in the upper House. The 1911 Act still allows the House of Commons to get through major constitutional reforms that the House of Lords may oppose.
The reason for introducing my new clause to exempt purely the first section of the Bill—the bit that limits the life of a Parliament specifically to five years, rather than continuing with the flexibility that we have previously had—is that this is a crucial constitutional development that we should be careful about changing, willy-nilly, as coalitions come and go. Our constitution should be safeguarded and preserved; it is not something that should be treated lightly or in an airy-fairy fashion—and one thing that the House of Lords can do, and does extraordinarily well, is prevent that from happening.
By the way, it is notable that their lordships sat throughout last night, fulfilling their proper constitutional role of ensuring that a serious constitutional change is properly debated and reviewed. We in this House find that guillotines come crashing down upon our necks to prevent the detailed deliberation that some of us might like over a rapid raft of changes to the constitution, but their lordships—some of whom are not in their first youth—have stayed up overnight, battling for the great British constitution, which has served us extraordinarily well for hundreds of years. Looking upon their lordships as the guardians of the constitution is a good reason for ensuring that the measure cannot be changed without their consent and approval.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I have listened quite attentively to the hon. Gentleman’s quite interesting opening remarks. Will he clarify something for me? If a party’s manifesto—I appreciate that this is a bizarre concept for Liberal Democrats—contained a plan to reduce the length of a Parliament, should the House of Lords have the opportunity effectively to veto the will of the people?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is a very helpful intervention, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for it. I think the House of Lords would almost certainly follow the Salisbury convention in that respect, and it would be wrong of it to go against the clearly expressed will, in a manifesto, of the lower House. The point of this measure is as a protection and a safeguard, not as a die-in-the-ditch stalling method to prevent any reform in future. It may be that, had I been around in 1911, I would have been all in favour of dying in a ditch to prevent reform, but I was not, and that is not the purpose of the new clause.
It is worth noting that the Bill is not subject to the Parliament Act 1911. The reason for that is that it extends the life of Parliament, potentially. It gives the Prime Minister the discretion—the ability—to extend the life of a Parliament from five years to a maximum of five years and two months. As we all know, the Parliament Act requires that that can be done only with the consent of the House of Lords, and cannot be pushed through if that consent were refused.
That leads me on to the reason why that was in the Parliament Act. Why was it thought sensible in 1911, when the Liberals were last in independent government—although they had some Irish help—to put in a clause that safeguarded the length of time that a Parliament could sit? It was done to prevent a tyranny of the lower House—to prevent a lower House from extending its life or changing its ability to serve for a particular time whenever it felt like it.
The relevant section is section 2, which states:
“If any Public Bill (other than a Money Bill or a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years) is passed by the House of Commons…”
So any Bill which extends the life of Parliament beyond five years is excluded from the functioning of the Parliament Act. That is relevant to this Bill, because it changes the basis on which the lifetime of a Parliament is calculated. It would therefore be logical to say that the safeguard in the 1911 Act should be extended to it too, so that it is clear that a new Government cannot come in and play fast and loose with the new Act. It would also give clarity to the Government’s purpose.
Many of us want to know whether the Act—or Bill, as it currently is—is about coalition and about two parties which, over a weekend in early May, were deeply distrustful of each other, or whether it is about major constitutional reform that it is thought will improve the settlement and the democracy of our nation.
The reason why I mention the weekend in May when the parties may have distrusted each other is that I have a feeling that that distrust has broadly evaporated. I think there is now great fellow feeling, at least in the hierarchies of the two parties, between the two sides that they work well together and are committed to some major reforms. The Liberal Democrats have made some admirable and brave decisions, particularly in relation to tuition fees, that have shown that their heart is in the right place in terms of the coalition, and how they have been willing to sacrifice part of their manifesto for it.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend for putting pithily in one intervention what it has taken me, I fear, 20 minutes to say. He is absolutely right that Her Majesty’s Government cannot have it both ways. Either the Bill is serious and important, in which case it should be exempt from the Parliament Act 1911, or it is simply the contract for a marriage of convenience and so should fall at the next general election.
Thomas Docherty
I will keep my remarks suitably brief. I was fascinated by the introductory remarks of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I do not think that he had the pleasure, Mr Speaker, of hearing your October lecture to the Hansard Society on the Parliament Act 1911. Had he heard it—I believe that it is repeated continually at weekends on the BBC Parliament channel—he would have a much better understanding of the purpose of the 1911 Act. I do not propose to give a blow-by-blow account of that lecture.
I was interested by a recent interview that the hon. Gentleman gave to The House magazine—a fine tome that I am sure all hon. Members read. He described himself as a Peelite:
“I believe in free-trade, sound money and the state being less onerous upon the subject than it has been in recent years.”
Having listened to him with interest, I suggest, to extend the coalition metaphor, that he is more of a Palmerstonite, because Palmerston was a great fan of the Great Reform Act of 1832, as I am sure you know, Mr Speaker. He believed that the 1832 Act was, to use the American phrase, “a perfect union”, and that no further reform was required for the Houses of Parliament or the country. I cannot help suspecting that the hon. Gentleman would regard himself as being in the tradition that believes that the Parliament Act 1911 gave us a perfect union and that no further changes should be supported.
I was particularly concerned to hear the hon. Gentleman say that unless the whole country supported a constitutional change—I think that was the phrase he used—we should not have further change. I say to him gently that, despite the immense popularity of his Prime Minister, I cannot foresee a day in which even the great Conservative party will convince the whole country to support constitutional change. I suspect that he may be setting the bar a little too high. Traditionally, if this House is given a clear mandate by the people through a general election, that is regarded as sufficient impetus for a constitutional reform.
The hon. Gentleman rightly pointed to the exceptions in the Parliament Act 1911 for money Bills—it is interesting that his forebears in the House were keen to exempt the ability of Governments to push through the raising of revenue from the people—and for the lengthening of Parliaments. It is juggling with logic to equate the lengthening of Parliaments with the shortening of Parliaments. By its nature, that would lead to more frequent elections—which would probably be a good thing, as we saw today with the introduction of my hon. Friend our new Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). When the people are given an opportunity to speak, they tend to speak loud and clear. If the hon. Gentleman’s new clause were accepted by those on the Treasury Bench, I fear that it would restrict the democratic rights of the people to hold elections to this place more often. For that reason, I fear that the Opposition could not possibly support it. Without making any further remarks, I will now let the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) speak to his amendment.
Mr Cash
Yes, indeed. I am seeking to amend the Bill through a new clause, and I am grateful to you for making that subtle distinction, Mr Speaker.
The point is that the title of the Bill is a give-away. It refers to “Parliaments”; it does not refer to “Parliament”. Therefore, there is an underlying assumption that the process in question—which is inevitably tied up with the concept of the coalition politics, which are increasingly regarded as a perpetual burden that we will be expected to comply with—is inherent in the arrangements for the proposals in the Bill. The use of the word “Parliaments”, in the plural, simply emphasises that.
As one who believes firmly in the idea that our constitutional arrangements have stood us in good stead for a long time, but without being obtuse about the need for reform, I would say that there are changes in our constitutional arrangements that, periodically, can be justified. However, my proposal is, effectively, a “stop and restart” provision. That is, if there is any merit in continuing the arrangements, if they were to survive for as long as the period allocated by the leaders of the parties and the coalition agreement, then there is always the possibility—to put it no higher than that—of referring to some of those outside this place who, as far as I am concerned, are the most important people of all, namely our electors, and not leaders of parties or parties themselves. The real question is: what do the public think about all this? Of course, they have not been asked; indeed, there is not the slightest intention that they should be asked.
What I am suggesting is that the very concept of a fixed-term Parliaments Bill is offensive to the hallowed principle—that simple constitutional proposition—that no Parliament can bind its successors. I have therefore decided—I am glad to be joined by a number of other hon. Members in this notion—that we should have what we describe in the title of new clause 5, namely the “Expiry and revival of section 2”. I happen to hope that such a revival does not take place, and I shall explain why. “Expiry”, certainly; however, as I was very sensibly advised, because of the scope of the Bill and its background, rather than proposing what I would otherwise have put forward, namely a sunset clause—or, as I think it would be better described, a “cast into the darkness of hell” clause—I have proposed that clause 2 be required to expire when the Parliament summoned to meet in May 2010, on that fixed and prescriptive date, dissolves. You might have an interest in this, Mr Speaker, because, if anything were to happen, there might even be the need for the re-election of a Speaker. In such rare circumstances, you might take a particular interest in this provision. I am suggesting that clause 2 should expire in those circumstances.
It is important to bear in mind the provisions in clause 2. We have moved on from the Committee stage to Report, and I remind the House that I tabled amendments to clause 2 in Committee because I took the gravest exception to certain elements in it. I am therefore anxious that it should expire, because I do not believe that it is a constitutionally satisfactory provision. Clause 2(1) states:
“An early parliamentary general election is to take place if the Speaker of the House of Commons issues a certificate—
(a) certifying that the House has passed a motion that there should be an early parliamentary general election,
(b) certifying whether or not the motion was passed on a division”—
I do not think that there would be much difficulty in demonstrating that. The clause continues:
(c) if it is certified that the motion was passed on a division, certifying that the number of members who voted in favour of the motion was a number equal to or greater than two thirds of the number of seats in the House (including vacant seats).”
I have no intention of going back to the discussions that we had on the clause. I tabled amendments to it and argued my case fairly, I thought, but the Whips got in the way—I do not know the reason—and the result was that I lost my Division. If I may say so without presumption, I do not believe that I lost the argument, but hon. Members on both sides of the House, particularly Back Benchers, are prone to believe our own arguments.
Thomas Docherty
On a point of clarification, I think it is fair to say that Opposition Members do not believe that the Deputy Prime Minister has won a single argument in the House during our deliberations on the Bill.
Mr Cash
That does not surprise me very much.
One thing that I objected to in clause 2 was the reference to “the number of seats”. We are elected as Members of Parliament, and I am not sure that “seats” are recognised in our constitutional arrangements. Seats do not speak, and vacant seats speak even less. I find the whole proposal utterly incomprehensible. As we well know, the present arrangement—not only in this legislature but in that of the United States and, I would say, all respectable legislatures—is that decisions are taken by a majority of one. So what is this new-fangled idea about a two-thirds majority? It is being introduced for one purpose only: to keep the provisions in the Bill going in perpetuity. That is why I take such exception to the use of the plural in the title “Fixed-term Parliaments Bill”.
This provision also involves an invasion of the principle that one Parliament cannot bind its successor. That is what I really object to, as that principle is central to our democratic process. The people who come in to any given Parliament are not the same as the previous people, and they are certainly not seats or vacant seats. I hope that other Members will agree that this is a very important constitutional question, on which I place a great deal of emphasis, in relation to the new clause that we are discussing.
Thomas Docherty
Does my hon. Friend agree with my assessment of the Parliament Act that the purpose of stipulating that parliamentary terms cannot be lengthened was to ensure a democratic check against the powers of the Prime Minister? Would not the hon. Member for North East Somerset’s new clause, regrettably, act as a check against democracy by stopping the right of the democratic House to shorten the length of a term? That is not the spirit in which the Parliament Act was intended.
Chris Bryant
Yes, although as the hon. Member for North East Somerset said at the very beginning of his speech, all this will become rather unnecessary once we have legislated for an elected, whether fully or substantially, second Chamber. At that point, elements of the Parliament Act, or even the whole Act, will almost certainly have to be reshaped.
Mr Shepherd
I am always encouraged when a political opponent, in the sense of someone from the other side of the House, adopts arguments that I advanced against him when he was sitting on the Front Bench on behalf of the Labour party. It is true. Now we see the conversion of the defeated. That is why we should always be mindful that our hold on government is a temporary experience, and that one day we will be sitting on the Benches on the other side of the Chamber and hoping to be able to make the reasoned arguments that can convince a wider public out there.
The sheer disengagement of some of our arguments from those by whom we are elected, and from why we are elected, is to me the most worrying development of Parliament in recent years. We have scorned the historic balance of where the people lie in this matter; that is why I support both new clauses. I have asked the whole way through our consideration of the Bill how it will strengthen the people’s hold over the House of Commons, which is their representative instrument for ensuring that public policy bears some relationship to the desires, hopes and aspirations of our society. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset for the informed, reasoned and reasonable way in which he presented his new clause. If it is put to a vote, I will vote for it, because I would like to show that there is some support in this House for the arguments it advances about temperance in respect of the House of Lords and its doings.
I am a democrat and truly believe in the representation of the people in this House, which is what I want to see. However, the basis of the argument that I have made the whole way through proceedings on the Bill is that we know that it is about the entrenchment of a temporary coalition, and we are trying to examine, and amend, the aspiration that things can somehow be rejigged. We have heard the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is sitting on the Front Bench, advance the startling proposition that the Queen could dismiss a Prime Minister for acting “improperly”. No constitutional documents in the past two centuries, and certainly not since 1867, have stated that that was a practical reality.
Thomas Docherty
In that case, perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain why Her Majesty was able to dismiss the Government of Australia, which is part of the Commonwealth, by using the powers that she has.
Mr Shepherd
The constitutional arrangements of Australia are a matter of written statute there, and I understand that the Governor-General exercised the prerogative power in the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers. However, that is not what I am concerned about; I am concerned about our own constitutional processes. I think that the statement by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was misjudged, but he has never withdrawn it. He is a representative of the Government, and of the Crown itself, but as a Member of Parliament he has never withdrawn that statement.
My nervousness about the Bill is clear. I am nervous about the idea that two parties can mandate that their existence as a coalition should last for a term of five years. I have expressed that view before, and I think that it is shared by a number of Members. I have no doubt that the Lords will think that measure trivial in some ways, because it is a presumption; how can one mandate something that is formed by human beings with their own policies and parties? They can work together to a certain extent, but the coalition will last as long as the coalition lasts. I am not damning it; I am just saying that I do not think that they should have reached forward with a Bill of this nature. If they want to work in harness they will have the support of a great many Members of this House. We know that the nation is confronted with an economic crisis and difficult decisions have to be made. The people of this country are having to make difficult decisions on how to restore economic competence, balance budgets and all the rest of it.
We have spent a lot of time on the first matter, so I will now come to the real new clause, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, which I will undoubtedly vote for. His brevity today was extraordinary. [Laughter.] I do not laugh at it, for I think that the expression of great ideas is all the more effective for being expressed in a concentrated and condensed way. I appreciate that there is a drinks party at Downing street for Members from my party who want to attend, so I will bring my remarks to a close, as the great business of the Government must not be delayed by the musings of the House of Commons on such matters as constitutional reform.
I am standing up to support the limitations that are being expressed and the hesitations about the nature of the Bill. If there were one thing that I could argue for and effect, it would be that the Government themselves realise that they have a job. We salute them for that, but, when they fiddle with the constitution in ways that suit only their own purpose and stifle the natural functioning flow of politics, we lose something, and we lose the attention of our constituents. My argument is that we cannot march to a drumbeat like that. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity at least to raise our caveats, and I am grateful to the Labour party for indicating that it will support the new clause. It is important, and I commend it.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend is articulating a coherent case. Does he agree that if we have a new electoral system, the odds of having a hung Parliament will increase greatly and that if this Parliament did not have an opportunity to re-form a Government, that would be expressly against the wishes of the people, who had clearly voted for a hung Parliament?
Chris Bryant
I detect a bit of a difference of view between my hon. Friend and myself here. I hate to say this, but I am rather more with the Deputy Leader of the House on this issue. My hon. Friend is right in saying that if a proportional system were introduced, a succession of hung Parliaments would be more likely. Consensus would rule the day and coalition Governments would be formed on a fairly regular basis. That is not absolutely certain, as it has not happened in some countries that have proportional representation. However, the alternative vote, which I shall be voting for—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) shouts out, “Shame”, but it expressly points out in “Erskine May” that shouting “Shame” is unparliamentary. I would not want to excoriate him on that basis. I am not quite sure on which page it says that, but I am sure he will find it, if he looks for it. [Interruption.]
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman has predicted almost exactly what I was about to say. The 40th Canadian Parliament, which was elected on 14 October 2008 and opened on 18 November, was prorogued by the Governor-General almost immediately, on 4 December, at the specific request of the then Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. I do not think that there is a deliberate coincidence between his surname and that of the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office.
Mr Harper expected a motion of no confidence in his Government, and a coalition agreement was established between the various parties with the support of the Bloc Québécois. As the hon. Gentleman says, that Prorogation was quite substantial, and a second Prorogation at the end of 2009 lasted for more than two months. Many complained that it too had been arranged expressly to avoid a political inconvenience. At the time, a big row was taking place about the detention of Afghans by Canadian forces.
As the hon. Gentleman suggests, there is a real danger that Prorogation could be used in a rather more assertive and political fashion. Governments in this country have tended not to use it in such a way, partly because it means losing the business on which they have embarked and having to start it all over again. That will probably continue, but given that Select Committee reports—including reports from the Standards and Privileges Committee—also fall in such circumstances, I can easily imagine that a Government might choose to prorogue a month earlier than usual, perhaps very early in a Parliament, in order to avoid a political necessity. Interestingly, the ostensible reason given by the Canadians was the prospect of the winter Olympics in Canada. They said it was imperative that the Canadian Government should be able to get on with its business, and that Parliament should not be able to meet during the Olympics.
I think it is right for the power to cease to be wholly in the hands of the Crown, and to be in the hands of the House. I also think that we should start to clarify the knitting pattern, as it were, of this part of the constitution as it currently exists. The laws governing Prorogation hang on a series of Acts of Parliament: the Prorogation Act 1867, the Meeting of Parliament Acts 1694, 1797, 1799 and 1870, and the Parliament (Elections and Meeting) Act 1943. The thrust of all those Acts is that the monarch is entirely able to prorogue Parliament, to decide when it will next meet, and to continue to prorogue with only the safeguards of the measures that I mentioned earlier in the context of the Bill of Rights.
There is a considerable lack of clarity in regard to the process in the run-up to a general election. We know when the next general election will be, at least according to the Bill, although we still hope that their lordships may enforce their will and ensure that it takes place in 2014 rather than 2015. Indeed, I hope that a significant number of Conservatives will support the 2014 date, if only to shrug off the embrace of the Liberal Democrats. However, given that we know when the next general election is expected to be, it surely makes sense for us to rationalise the process of Prorogation.
Up to 1974, there were only two 20th-century general elections in which a Dissolution was not preceded by a Prorogation: the elections of 22 August 1922 and 31 July 1964. As I am sure Members have already spotted, both those elections took place in the summer months, during long recesses when the House stood adjourned. Adjournment, of course, follows a decision by the House, not the Government. There followed a period during which the Government decided to abandon Prorogation. There were adjournments in the summer of 1974, in 1979, in 1983 and in 1987, with no Prorogation.
By 1987, the assumption seemed to have become that the House would do without Prorogation at the end of a Parliament and before Dissolution, partly because the Royal Assent Act 1967 had allowed Royal Assent to be granted by notification rather than necessarily by Prorogation. There was, and still is, no specific need at Prorogation for Royal Assent to Acts that had not yet been referred to. In fact, in 1987 there was something of a row in the House. Mr Speaker Weatherill said that he thought it inappropriate for us to abandon Prorogation. It may be apposite to discuss that occasion this evening, given that so many Members have left the Chamber to go to a drinks party in Downing street. Incidentally, is the sun already past the yardarm? It is not yet 6 pm, and Conservatives are already drinking in Downing street. Tradition has gone by the board.
Thomas Docherty
I am sure that the fact that the Conservatives have had to resort to drink has nothing to do with last Thursday’s result in the Oldham by-election.
Chris Bryant
I do not think they are very happy. I also think that the Prime Minister may have needed to gather his troops as a result of last week’s result.
On that occasion in 1987, the Speaker and several Members, including Mr Faulds, expressed the view that one of the traditions that had developed over the years was that once a Parliament had been prorogued, Members had an opportunity to make final speeches, and the Speaker had an opportunity to bid farewell to those who would not be standing in the subsequent election. I believe that 86 were not standing again in 1987. Mr Speaker Weatherill said that he thought it was wrong for there to be no Prorogation before Dissolution, and several Members agreed. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) was the only one who believed that it would be good to get rid of Prorogations, because the whole business of Lords Commissioners doffing their caps in the House of Lords struck him as a ludicrous ceremony that should be abolished. A fair number of Members probably think that the quaintness of that moment should not simply be chucked away for the sake of it. My point is, however, that the decision on whether Prorogation should take place ought to lie in the hands of the House rather than in those of Government. I also think it is important for it to be known at that point exactly when the first sitting of the new Parliament will be.
As a result, I suspect, of Mr Speaker Weatherill’s views, Dissolution was again preceded by Prorogation in 1992, 1997, 2005 and 2010. However, in 2001 Parliament was dissolved without being prorogued, and was simply adjourned on 11 May 2001. Adjournment was, of course, a decision of the House, not the Government.
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—
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.
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.
Thomas Docherty
At the risk of rushing to the hon. Gentleman’s rescue, I suspect that Labour Members tried that approach in the previous Parliament, and I do not recall it ending particularly well for the former Prime Minister.
Dan Byles
I genuinely do not believe that that is the reason.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) pointed out that three of the past five Parliaments lasted five years, and I was developing a point about the average length of post-1945 Parliaments. If the three failed Parliaments lasting less than two years are stripped out, the average length of a Parliament since 1945 has been more than four years. Since 1974 the lengths have been even greater, so there is a clear trend that Parliaments are lasting longer.
Thomas Docherty
I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman’s logic, but does he accept that, with the exception of the Parliament between 1987 and 1992, every Parliament since the 1950s that has lasted longer than four years has ended with the defeat of the governing party at a general election? Frankly, if the Prime Ministers in those Parliaments could have gone on longer they would have done, just to avoid the electorate.
Dan Byles
If the hon. Gentleman is arguing that Parliaments that last for five years are more likely to end with the defeat of the Government, he should be wholeheartedly embracing the coalition’s plans to make this Parliament last for five years.
If there is something so constitutionally or democratically wrong with five-year Parliaments, why on earth did we have to endure the previous Government from 2005 until 2010? If five-year Parliaments are wrong in principle, as several Labour Members seem to suggest, why did not the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown)—I apologise if I have not pronounced the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency correctly, but as I have heard him speak in the House so rarely, I am not sure how to pronounce it—do the entire country a favour and call an election in 2009? We then could have started clearing up the mess of the worst financial deficit that this country has faced since the second world war a year earlier.
Dan Byles
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am extremely concerned about that point, and very eager to get on to the part of my speech in which I shall address it. However, I want to conclude the point, which I was pulled on to by interventions, about whether the term should be fixed at four years or five. I turn again to the conclusions and recommendations in the report on the Bill produced by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which has already been quoted today by Labour Members. Recommendation 5 clearly states:
“Precedent gives no clear answer as to whether Parliaments should last four years or five.”
In recommendation 6 the report acknowledges the views expressed by some witnesses that four years might be better than five. Nevertheless, the recommendation clearly states that that
“is an important point, but not one that we would wish to see obstruct the passage of the Bill through the House.”
That is important, and I hope that Labour Members will take note of it.
Before moving on to the subject of the amendments before the House, I would like briefly to—
Thomas Docherty
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My understanding of the procedures of the House is that Members need to refer directly to the proposals on the amendment paper, not rehash or rehearse a debate that took place previously, and at some length.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
First, it is for me to decide whether a Member is straying out of line. I would say to Mr Byles that he has to keep in order on new clause 4. He has drifted a little, but he keeps coming back to the matter of four years or five. I am sure that he has taken those remarks on board, and that we can continue.
Dan Byles
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for joining our discussion of the history pertaining to Prorogation. I am glad that he has recognised that understanding the history of how we have got to where we are today is relevant to the discussion at hand. However, as the House is clearly not in the mood to discuss history today, and as I am aware that time is pressing, I want to move on and make a final point about amendment 9 before bringing my remarks to a conclusion.
Clause 3 states:
“Once Parliament dissolves, Her Majesty may issue the proclamation summoning the new Parliament which may…
(a) appoint the day for the first meeting of the new Parliament”.
Amendment 9 would add:
“within 15 working days of the polling day”.
The issue has already been discussed, but I am concerned that the amendment remains a little woolly. I question its purpose. What does a working day mean? Does that take into account religious holidays? There has already been a discussion about whether “working day” or “days” should be used. If that is an issue that the Opposition are concerned about, the term “working days” remains vague. Are bank holidays in other parts of the United Kingdom to be taken into account?
Is it not difficult to add “within 15 working days” in such specific terms, when “working days” could mean something entirely different in another part of the United Kingdom? In particular, why is Labour adamant about 15 working days? Is there any rationale or logic behind this number? Why not 14 days or 16 days? If we believe in evidence-based policy making in this place—[Interruption.] I detect some chuckling. Perhaps that is a dangerous thought. Evidence is not always welcome in this place. I have discovered that in previous debates. Perhaps when he sums up, the hon. Member for Rhondda will explain to us why 15 days is the magic number, not 14 or 16.
The House has indulged me enough. Time is pressing and there may be others who wish to speak. I thank the House for its attention.
Thomas Docherty
I shall keep my remarks brief as I understand that the Prime Minister might be rushing back to make a statement to the House about the commercialisation of Downing street following the revelations from the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) earlier this evening. I understand that the Liberal Democrats have a large campaign debt to pay off from Oldham East and Saddleworth.
May I gently tease colleagues on the Government Benches about the importance of referring to the United Kingdom when speaking about our nation state? I am sure all colleagues are aware that we are not just England or Britain; we are the United Kingdom.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) helpfully referred to an earlier edition of “Erskine May” with reference to the shouting of the phrase “Shame!” from a sedentary position. It might help the House if I clarify that that applied up to the 19th edition of “Erskine May”. Since then, I am advised, the term has been removed from “Erskine May” and is therefore, I imagine, legitimate.
Addressing new clause 4 and the associated amendments which, as “Erskine May” says, is the purpose of the debate, I shall tackle head-on the question whether the Opposition support the principle of a fixed-term Parliament. It is well known that we did not oppose Second Reading because we support the principle of a fixed-term Parliament. Our specific objections have been not just to the length—four or five years—but to some of the technical issues, which is why my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda and for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and others have tabled a series of tidying-up amendments, as we would describe them, although I understand that not every hon. Member supports that principle.
Mr Charles Walker
As a matter of interest, how will the hon. Gentleman vote on Third Reading tonight?
Thomas Docherty
I do not like to leave the House in suspense, but on this one occasion hon. Members will have to wait and see how many of our amendments the Government are prepared to accept. Clearly, if the Minister accepts all the considered amendments that we have offered, we would be more than happy to give strong consideration to supporting Third Reading. I look forward to the Minister’s reply shortly.
Kelvin Hopkins
My hon. Friend is being very generous to the Government. Even if they accepted the amendments, I would be inclined to vote against Third Reading.
Thomas Docherty
The Minister is a thoroughly reasonable individual and I am sure he will not hold that statement against the rest of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition when he considers accepting our amendments.
As has been outlined previously—it would be inappropriate for me to go into great detail—we do not support the principle of a five-year term, for one practical reason that has not been touched on before, which is that it would take us into a clash with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland elections that are scheduled for 2015.
As this is the first opportunity that the Minister has had to address the House on the matter since our Committee stage last year, I hope that he will be able to provide us with an update on the Government’s plans for providing flexibility to the devolved Administrations to vary the dates of their elections. That is an extremely personal matter, as I shall explain. Perhaps he can tell the House what progress has been made in his consultation with the devolved Administrations on how any such alteration of the date of their elections would be achieved.
That is directly relevant to the issue under discussion because of the different number of days of Prorogation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda outlined, we have 25 days for the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the National Assembly for Wales and local elections, and just 17 days for this place. Let me give a simple local example to show why new clause 4 and others are so important to the date.
The differing number of days will cause great confusion for parties and for the electorate in the 2015 election cycle. Part of my constituency is the Dunfermline East Scottish Parliament seat. We have an MSP called Helen Eadie. Under the current rules—we still do not have firm proposals from the Government to alter the date—some two and a half weeks from polling day it would be legitimate for the Labour party, for example, to send out leaflets saying, “Vote Helen Eadie for your Member of the Scottish Parliament and vote Thomas Docherty for Member of Parliament.” That is an unsatisfactory situation, and it is the reason why my hon. Friend and I are hoping to persuade the Minister tonight that he should change the length of Prorogation to 25 days to give us consistency across the whole of the United Kingdom.
There is also the question of how campaign finance will work. Members are painfully aware of the importance of ensuring that money is correctly apportioned to the long campaign, as it is commonly known, as opposed to the short campaign. Joint elections could give rise to difficult legal and technical disputes, as we saw in the case of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), if sums of money are inadvertently misallocated. We therefore hope that the Government will accept our reasonable amendment.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that such anomalies already exist and have existed for a long time? In England it is common for local government elections to be held on the same day as a parliamentary election. In Bristol those local government elections follow an entirely different timetable from the parliamentary election.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly sensible point, although I always caution hon. Members not to equate local elections in England with elections to the devolved Administrations. There is a substantive difference in the amount of spend that is allowed, and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland devolved elections use the same formulas for election spend. Perhaps it was an oversight of previous Governments not to address the valid point that the hon. Gentleman makes. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) has said, we are prepared to admit that we did not achieve all the legislation that we would like to have achieved, although if we were to ask the electorate what was the most important thing that we could have achieved, fixing that would not necessarily have been the top priority.
Reference has been made to the issue of Prime Ministers handing over power to their party or other parties. I think that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford misunderstood the difference between the House being adjourned and the House being prorogued. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, if the House is adjourned, existing legislation is not lost. If it prorogues, however, all legislation except public Bills falls and the legislative process must start again. That is why it is important that when the Parliamentary Resources Unit produces its next brief for Conservative Members it should spend some time getting those details correct.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman makes a completely sensible point that goes to the heart of some of our arguments tonight. I will give a specific example, because there has been some discussion of the fact that none of those cases was the direct result of a no-confidence vote. I remind the House that in 1940 the Government of the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, fell on what is largely accepted to have effectively been a vote of no confidence. It was a no-confidence vote by any other name. As the Parliamentary Secretary and the Deputy Leader of the House have accepted, under their proposals there could be a no-confidence motion that is not officially stamped as such. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, in 1940 the House did not prorogue. There was simply a change of Administration, and a short time later a coalition Government were formed involving all three parties. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Chamberlain Government, there was no coalition, and nor was the House prorogued.
Damian Collins
The hon. Gentleman is referring to the vote that followed the Norway debate, which the then Government won. However, they chose to change their leadership anyway as a result of the pressure of the vote. If circumstances were repeated and that was considered to be a confidence motion, it would not lead to the fall of the Government unless they chose to go.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman highlights a crucial element, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle mentioned earlier—the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—that was an Adjournment debate and was not even a formal resolution. That shows exactly the problem with the Bill as it is worded. It accepts the principle that there is no requirement for a formal vote of no confidence, but it does not accept those nuances that are part of the argument that, even if a Government win but do not meet a threshold that they have set beforehand, they have in effect fallen.
I can think of another example from our devolved Administrations. It was clear in 2001 that the then First Minister of Scotland, Henry McLeish, had lost the confidence of the Scottish Parliament and of his party. On the morning of the no-confidence debate he resigned as First Minister. That did not lead to the proroguing of the Scottish Parliament. It was an unprecedented event in the short history of the Scottish Parliament, but it survived. I hope that the Minister will, even at this late stage, take on board the fact that, as far as Oppositions ever are, we are seeking to be helpful to the Government, and certainly to the House, by providing some technical amendments to tidy up the Bill.
The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) referred to France and the United States. I was not aware that he was such a Francophile, but perhaps that is the result of the new coalition spirit. My understanding—I am happy to be corrected—is that the French President has the power to dismiss the Prime Minister summarily, but I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is not advocating that we adopt the same position in this country.
As the Minister knows, I am something of a bore on the subject of the United States’ constitution. When the founding fathers of the United States were considering the peculiarities of their arrangements in the constitutional convention, one thing they desperately tried to avoid was over-lengthy terms of office. That is why they have elections every two years in their states. Votes for Congress, the Senate and the Presidency are staggered. Although I accept that the hon. Member for North Warwickshire is trying gallantly to defend the Minister’s position, I fear that it is not a straightforward example to apply in this case. I have spoken in favour of the amendments, but I am conscious that the Prime Minister will be rushing to the House and that the Minister wishes to reply, so I will end my comments.
Mr Heath
I do not think that the House has had as elegant and extensive a debate on Prorogation since the legislation was passed in 1867. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for opening the debate and to the hon. Members for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), for Foyle (Mark Durkan), for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for their contributions. I must say, however, that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife blotted his escutcheon as a political anorak by being four editions of “Erskine May” off the pace. To quote the 19th edition when we are now up to the 23rd is really beyond the pale.
Thomas Docherty
For the benefit of the Deputy Leader of the House and of the Official Report, my point was that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to the fact that up until the 19th edition of “Erskine May” the word “shame” was not allowed. My point was that we have moved on, and I have the 23rd edition in my hand.
Mr Heath
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for restoring my faith in his credentials, although he has destroyed those of the hon. Member for Rhondda.
The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford put his finger on what was wrong with the debate once we had prised him from his views on reasonably priced white wine, because he made the point, which I think was backed up by the hon. Member for Foyle, who mentioned an Urquhart-like Prime Minister, that many of the rather apocalyptic views of what an evil denizen of No. 10 might do seem to be founded on fancy, rather than on experience or expectation. We have been asked repeatedly to assume that every convention that applies has applied and will apply, whether the Bill becomes law, as I hope it will, or not. All those conventions would be summarily set aside.
It has been suggested that there would be confidence motions that no Member of the House, not even Mr Speaker, would recognise as confidence motions. It has been suggested that Prime Ministers who lose a vote of confidence might refuse to resign and remain in office despite the fact that they had lost the vote, or that if once they resign they might somehow give posthumous advice from beyond the political grave to Her Majesty to prorogue and therefore frustrate the intentions of the House and of the legislation. It is then suggested that Her Majesty, in a way that has never been the experience of any Member of this House or our predecessors, would be so forgetful of her constitutional duty that she would not ask another leader capable of commanding the confidence of the House to form a Government and end any temporary Prorogation.
I believe that those are fanciful concerns. I accept that they are theoretically possible, but I ask the House to consider whether any of those things have happened. Almost all of them are included in the conventions that cover our political system and our current constitutional arrangements and will persist after the passage of the Bill. I am indebted to the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which someone casually looking at our debate might imagine had been critical of the provisions in this part of the Bill, but far from it. It examined the matter in some detail, and the witnesses were unanimous in their view. Paragraph 147 states:
“Professor Bradley agreed that such a possibility, while theoretically possible, ‘would be very unsatisfactory and British politics would have sunk to a new low.’”
Professor Bogdanor was mentioned earlier, and the confidences of the tutorials between him and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) might or might not have been breached, but he suggested that the situation could reasonably
“be left to the discretion of a ‘wise constitutional monarch’”,
which is indeed what we have,
“who would not prorogue at the request of a Prime Minister who no longer had the confidence of the House.”
The Committee, having heard the evidence rather than the conjecture, concluded:
“We agree that the risk of abuse of the power of prorogation is very small. We therefore conclude that Her Majesty’s power to prorogue Parliament should remain.”
So, there was very clear advice from the noble members of that Lords Committee, and I am sure that it will colour their consideration of the matter.
We have heard from lots of people who profess to know what happened in Canada, but, just in case there are lingering concerns about the extraordinary situation of the Prorogation that apparently saved the Canadian Government, I note that the Lords Committee took evidence from an academic who probably knows a little more than any of us in this House about the Canadian political system. Professor Henry Milner, from l’université de Montréal, stated in his evidence:
“The Canadian case was unique because prorogation saved the government, which it normally should not. ... [The] circumstances [were] so unusual that you could not imagine them. I would have to give you each of the steps in the Canadian case, all of which were unlikely and all of which fitted together. Frankly, I would not worry about it.”
That is probably a safe conclusion for this House.
On the proposed changes before us, I shall deal, first, with new clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, and the consequential amendments 2, 3 and 4, which would give the House a new and exclusive power to prorogue Parliament. Most contributors to the debate were clear about this, but we need to make a clear distinction between Dissolution and Prorogation, because they are very different things, and the Government believe it important that the Bill provides the House with the power to decide when there should be a Dissolution of Parliament.
It is legitimate to give the House control over early Dissolution, because that will take place only in circumstances where the Government of the day have lost the confidence of the House and can therefore no longer lead the country effectively, or where a two-thirds majority of elected MPs has passed a motion calling for an early election. Those are matters directly concerned with the choice of Government and the election of Members, and it is right that this elected House should have primacy.
Prorogation, however, is a different matter. Hon. Members will know that it is a mechanism to bring to an end a Session of Parliament. It determines, subject to the carry-over procedure, when Bills must have completed their passage through both Houses so that they become law. That relates to the point that several hon. Members made, whereby, if we prorogue while Bills are still in process, they are lost. Sometimes, an incoming Government will wish that; sometimes, they will not, particularly if they are of a similar political complexion to the previous Administration.
The hon. Gentleman’s new clause places no obligation to consult or agree with the other place on the timing or length of Prorogation, even though it affects that House equally. The new clause would therefore give this House a controlling hand over the conduct of business in the other place by providing us with the power to dictate when the other House must have completed its business. That would be a significant departure from the current situation in the wash-up, and some might view it as an unwelcome extension of this House’s powers.
As I said in earlier debates, through this Bill the Government seek to make only those changes to the constitution necessary to facilitate the principle of fixed-term Parliaments. The proposed new clause seems to fall wide of that intention.
Thomas Docherty
I have listened attentively to the Minister’s remarks. Notwithstanding his reluctance to support our reasoned amendment, will he outline where he has got to, therefore, in discussions with the devolved Administrations about how the elections will work, and outline when we will see proposed legislation? Clearly, there is a significant knock-on effect for devolved elections.
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.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The hon. Lady may not be aware of this, but my recollection is that the Scottish Conservatives did not receive 20% of the vote in Scotland at the last general election. Is she saying, therefore, that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) would not be able to take part in that process?
Mrs Laing
No, not at all. I appreciate the political point that the hon. Gentleman seeks to make, but that would make no difference because the Conservative party throughout the United Kingdom as a whole obtained considerably more than 20% of the popular vote, and in some places, such as Epping Forest—I am very pleased to say—a mere 54%. The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly good point, but it would be a pity to take up the time of the Committee looking in detail at the percentages involved. My purpose in putting the issue before the Committee is to address the serious concerns relating to exclusive cognisance, which were put to the Select Committee by the Clerk, whose opinion on the matter we take very seriously. The Committee, too, should esteem the Clerk’s opinion and recognise his concerns, and this is an opportunity for Members to consider them.
Thomas Docherty
It might help the House to know that the Scottish Parliament has very specific rules about what counts as a motion of no confidence in the Government. For example, failing to get a Budget through does not count, as we saw just two years ago when the Scottish National party Government could not get their Budget through on the first attempt.
Chris Bryant
I think my hon. Friend normally thinks of himself as a Thomas, rather than a Tommy, Mr Amess. He is similar to Tommy McAvoy, but not quite the same. I think he will take that as a compliment, but I am not entirely sure. He will doubtless tell me later. He is absolutely right about the Scottish Parliament.
The whole thrust of my argument is that, in the past, the House has for the most part proceeded on the basis of gentleman’s agreements and of conventions that are not written down anywhere, and on the basis that “Erskine May” is a more important bible than statute law in relation to these matters. However, we are now fixing the length of our Parliaments and moving towards determining many other elements of our constitutional settlement in statute law, and it is vital that we should be clear about what we mean by a motion of no confidence.
I fully accept that other Members might want to include certain other categories. The one other aspect that might be considered always to be a motion of no confidence—so it should perhaps be included—is the acceptance of an amendment to the Loyal Address after a general election. The Bill does not provide for circumstances in which a new Government are formed by a motion of confidence, although that happens elsewhere—in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, for example, where the First Ministers are appointed by a vote.
Thomas Docherty
For further clarification, it is not only the First Minister but each of the Ministers that he or she subsequently appoints who require a formal vote in the Scottish Parliament. Some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen might find that to be a useful mechanism.
Chris Bryant
You would rule me out of order, Mr Amess, if I debated whether there should be confirmation hearings for all Ministers and related matters. I understand why some might say that my amendment could be improved upon by including a third category of no confidence motion—one relating to the tabling of an amendment to the Loyal Address at the beginning of a new Parliament. To those who think that way, I say that it would be better to carry the amendment today so that we improve the legislation and then move further forward to suggest amendments to amplify that provision on Report.
With that, I conclude. I shall want to press amendment 25. If you took the view that we could divide on that amendment later, Mr Amess, I would be grateful.
Mrs Laing
Indeed, and that power has been used by the Government many times. I have noticed over the past 13 years that there have been very long recesses when it suited the last Government for the House of Commons not to be sitting and able to hold them to account. It is within the power of the Government to do that, and although I have accused the last Labour Government of behaving in a way that could be described as dishonourable in that respect, I would be the first to say that other Governments have been able to use the power in the same way.
Thomas Docherty
As I am a new Member, will the hon. Lady tell me which Government introduced the September sittings to break up the very long summer recess?
Sheila Gilmore
Members of the Committee were dissatisfied with various Government responses, including that one. It was partly because of the lack of clarity in this area that we came up with a number of amendments, including some of those being debated.
This is a simple matter. Let me bring it back to where the public are coming from and what they would want us to do. I think they would want us to produce something out of the Bill, even though it is not an ideal way of going about constitutional reform, that is simple, clear and understandable, and we should proceed on that basis.
Thomas Docherty
I regret that I have been unable to be here as much today as on other days, but hon. Members will appreciate that I had Select Committee business. I have been fascinated to see so many Liberal Democrats here. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on why a record number of Lib Dems have turned up to hear how to bring about the collapse of a Government now or in future. I am sure he will feed all this back to the Deputy Prime Minister when he next sees him.
I shall try to stick to the issue at hand, Mr Amess. I strongly welcome the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and it is a matter of some regret on both sides of the House that the Deputy Prime Minister did not take the time for any other pre-legislative scrutiny. Opposition Members and several Government Members have tried to strengthen the Bill. Of course, we are not opposed to the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, although we would prefer a term of four years to five. Our aim is to try to make sure that we have clarity, so it is disappointing that we have not yet heard from the Minister any of the necessary clarity about what would constitute a vote of no confidence.
Obviously, as a new Member, I do not have the same experience and length of service as many Members on both sides of the House, but having recently read Mr Alistair Campbell’s “Diaries”—an excellent read—I was struck by the account of an occasion when the previous Conservative Government threatened to use a no confidence motion to stay in office. I am sure the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and others can confirm that. You, too, Mr Amess, may recall those days.
It seems to me a slightly grubby, if not shabby, state of affairs for a Prime Minister of whatever hue to try to drive through legislation by using such a threat.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
We heard earlier from the Labour Front-Bench spokesman about the grubby attitudes of Prime Ministers who threatened that losing a vote would lead to a general election. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that history repeated itself on many occasions during the last 13 years? Does he condemn that sort of attitude?
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those comments. As I was not a Member during the last 13 years, I shall have to wait for the second volume of Mr Campbell’s “Diaries”. However, the hon. Gentleman’s point is not invalid. No Prime Minister of whatever hue should be allowed to hold a gun to the head of his own side. As much as I am a fan of our Whips Office—we have excellent Whips and several of them are hovering near me, so I may make that point again—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has already said, if the Bill is not clarified, which I hope the Minister will do tonight, the Whips Offices will have an immense power of threat. As my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) pointed out earlier in his excellent remarks, there was at least one occasion when legislation that, on reflection, was unnecessary, and may indeed have exceeded requirements, was jammed through. That also relates to the point made by the hon. Gentleman. For those reasons, I very much welcome my hon. Friends’ proposals on the 14-day period. If there is a period of reflection, we could make a change.
I have huge respect for our Speaker. He is doing an excellent job.
Sir Peter Soulsby
On the question of Governments using devices to avoid the will of the House, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vitally important that the Committee approves amendment 36, which has been proposed by the Select Committee? It is designed to make sure that the Government cannot use their prerogative as a device to prorogue the House to avoid complying with its will.
Thomas Docherty
I thank my hon. Friend for that remark and I congratulate him, as well as the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), on the work of the Select Committee. My hon. Friend is entirely correct. As the Bill stands, it gives the Prime Minister and the Chief Whip vast power. It is the responsibility of Parliament to be a check on the Executive branch. I seem to be filling the Chamber, so this is of some interest. Members on both sides of the House have consistently made the argument that we have a duty to hold the Executive to account.
I am, as I said, a massive fan of the Speaker, although I accept that I do not have much with which to compare his activities. There is a serious danger that if the Bill continues its passage without suitable alteration, we are placing our Speaker and subsequent Speakers in an extremely difficult position. I counsel the Committee to think carefully when we come to vote.
Chris Bryant
In relation to that, may I put to my hon. Friend the point that I tried to put to the Minister earlier, but which he was not able to answer? Under the provisions of the clause, if the House had carried a motion calling for an early general election by a majority of 10 or 20 votes but not by the required super-majority, would the Speaker be able to determine that that was a motion of confidence, or would the Prime Minister be able to declare that it was a matter of confidence or no confidence in his Government, thereby qualifying under the second category and in effect, therefore, manufacturing an early general election?
Thomas Docherty
As ever, my hon. Friend succinctly hits the nail on the head. The Bill is a mess because the Government did not take full advantage of the opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, unfortunately, that is becoming a hallmark of the Government, particularly in relation to any constitutional change affecting Scotland?
Thomas Docherty
I thank my hon. Friend. I will not repeat my previous lecture on US constitutional history, but it is worth reflecting on what happened before the 1997 general election, when Labour, the Liberal Democrats and civic society in Scotland got together for a five-year constitutional convention and teased out over that period exactly the mechanisms that would lead to a no-confidence vote. As I mentioned earlier, using the example of Scotland, if the Budget falls in the Scottish Parliament, that does not automatically trigger an early general election. What happens is that the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament has to set out that there will be a vote of no confidence later.
Mr Cash
The hon. Gentleman spoke about his enthusiasm for the Speaker. Does he agree that we must make certain that under no circumstances should the Speaker’s certificate be decided through the courts? The provision in the clause raises a serious question. The Clerk of the House was entirely right in his assessment. Furthermore, when the Committee votes on the amendments, it must decide that it will not under any circumstances allow the Speaker’s certificate to be decided by the courts, and that the wording of the 1911 Act—
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Interventions must be brief.
Thomas Docherty
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, who has yet again identified the matter as a cross-House, cross-party, cross-views issue. It is not about tripping up the Government, but about providing clarity and ensuring that the matter is not resolved in the courts.
Sir Peter Soulsby
On the point about providing clarity, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that amendment 37 is passed? Without that, it is not clear what would happen as a result of a vote of no confidence. Amendment 37 makes it clear what follows from that and provides that necessary clarity in what might otherwise be a very uncertain period.
Thomas Docherty
Yet again, my hon. Friend is correct. We have seen no signal from the Government—I will happily give way to the Minister if he wishes to signal—that they will take on board the sensible, reasoned, bipartisan approach offered by the Select Committee. It is disappointing that the Minister does not wish to take that simple point on board. As the hon. Gentleman said, the issue cannot be resolved in the courts, because it would be an embarrassment to this House—a House that has stood in one form or another for 900 years—if we were forced to resort to them. We are not the Americans, I am pleased to say, and our political process should be decided through the will of the people and through their elected representatives. We should not pay high-value, slick lawyers to scurry off to the Supreme Court to try to overturn—
NATO Summit
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I think it incentivises the Afghan Government to recognise that we are serious about handing over a country for them to run. It also shows the Afghan security forces that they are going to have to learn to stand on their own two feet. Let me make two additional points. First, there is a serious amount of time to elapse between now and the end of 2014 when all this has to be completed. This is not some rapid deadline; there are a lot of years between now and then to make it work. Secondly, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary has said about the US forces:
“I think anything that remains after 2014 would be very modest and very much focused on the kind of train and advise and assist role”.
So I do not think we are putting ourselves apart from the consensus on this matter.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Further to the answers given to both my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy) and to the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), will the Prime Minister provide some specific figures—either to the House today or later through the Library—on how many additional trainers and instructors each of the NATO countries has committed to Afghanistan?
The Prime Minister
I should be happy to place that information in the House of Commons Library or write to the hon. Gentleman. In the run-up to the summit everyone was asked to make extra contributions, and my understanding is that we made ours and that a number of other countries did the same. However, I should be happy to provide the information so that the hon. Gentleman can see exactly how we will secure the size of Afghan security forces that we need.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady accept, therefore, that the only other Parliament in the United Kingdom has a four-year term, and that is the Scottish Parliament, for which, I regret, she did not vote in 1997?
Mrs Laing
No I did not, but I would argue with the hon. Gentleman that, if he seeks consistency, which would not be unreasonable, the Scottish Parliament should change to five years. There is no problem with that.
The point made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) about comparisons with local authorities is interesting but irrelevant, because we are talking about Parliament, the work of which has a long time lag.
Mrs McGuire
Trust the Liberals to get involved in semantics. Everyone else knew what I was talking about.
I suggest to the Minister that there is general good will in the House for fixed-term Parliaments, fixed-term elections, or whatever phraseology we want to use to describe what we all know we are talking about. There is consensus on that principle, but the Government must decide whether they will listen to the voice not just of political opponents, but of people who want that constitutional change. It is not a long way to travel to recognise major constitutional and practical problems with the date that they have chosen, and with the five-year term in principle. A coalition is also about listening to people outside the coalition, and I hope that the Government will yet come forward with a change to the Bill so that the House can agree on fixed-term elections in a way that allows us all to move forward without making it an issue of acrimony between parties.
Thomas Docherty
I welcome you to the Chair, Miss Begg. As I sat here this afternoon and this evening, I saw my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and hon. Members on the Government Benches, and I had a feeling of déjà vu. I felt that we had been here quite recently, and it occurred to me that that was so.
We had a debate in Committee just three weeks ago—[Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Foyle said, it was to discuss a Bill with a different title, but one that also sought to change our parliamentary system. There are perhaps only two reasons why the Government did not amalgamate them in a single Bill. First, this is a back-of-a-fag-packet rushed job that they have pulled together, but they could not get their civil servants to work fast enough for the Deputy Prime Minister. I note that he is not here tonight, and I can only assume that after his 70-minute contribution to our eight hours of debate on the other Bill he is exhausted. I am sure that Opposition Members wish him all the best in his recovery from that exhaustion. The second reason could be that the Minister so enjoys spending time on Bills that he has been bouncing around all week in eager anticipation of listening to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda giving him an interesting lecture on constitutional history. Without further ado, I will indulge not that fetish, but that fantasy.
I was lucky enough to go on the visit by the all-party British-American parliamentary group to the United States some two months ago, and spent a lot of time studying the US constitution, and especially its constitutional convention, which is particularly apt given the comments by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) about interesting parallels between our parliamentary system and that of our colonial cousins across the water. I have to confess to being something of an anorak in these matters. In fact, I have been described as the Leonard to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda’s Sheldon when it comes to the constitutional process.
I should like to recommend to the Committee an excellent book by Professor Robert Beeman called “Plain, Honest Men: the making of the American constitution”, which I would be happy to lend to the Minister and to the Deputy Leader of the House if they would like to study it. They might be interested to know that when the Americans came to draw up their constitution and were considering the lengths of terms of office and the roles of the upper and lower Houses and of the Executive, they held a four-month constitutional convention in 1789. They brought together some of the great minds of the day, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and one James Wilson, who was a native of Fife and educated at St Andrew’s university, and who emigrated to the colonies in the 1750s. They spent four months debating those matters, and only at the end of that time, after a proper detailed debate, did they deign to bring forward detailed proposals for their terms of office, fixed terms and so on.
Mr Shepherd
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not forget one of the very important constituent parts of that whole debate—namely, the federalist papers. They laid out the arguments for the wider public, which were fiercely debated with proposition and counter-proposition. That was a formidable ingredient that involved an awful lot of people.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I apologise for not having touched on it. He is entirely right to say that the work of the likes of Madison and Hamilton was crucial, but that there was also a great debate. They did not try to rush their proposal through.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
We are certainly being educated here tonight. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Philadelphia convention was conducted on the basis of a tabula rasa, and that those people were starting from a base point? What we see here before us today is a foul, expedient hotch-potch of crisis and chaos spatchcocked together to try to allow the coalition to limp on into the future. To compare it to the great towering genius of Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison is to do them a disservice and to give the present coalition Government rather too much credit.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that excellent point. When I look at those on the Government Front Bench, however, I see some nuggets of hope and principle, and I am sure they will listen carefully to the points that we are making.
The Minister might be interested to know that, when the Americans were considering term lengths for their parliamentarians and for the presidency, they originally considered a three-year term for the House of Representatives and a seven-year term for the presidency and the Senate. Before the Minister gets too excited about the idea of a seven-year term, however, I should tell him that they also considered making it for one term only. Indeed, they argued that the Executive branch should not sully itself by seeking re-election. I suspect that he would be less keen on that principle. Slowly, however, over that summer, they moved towards a settled will among the 13 colonies. In fact, I should say 12 colonies because, as hon. Members will know, Rhode Island did not attend any part of the convention. They settled on a system of two-year terms for the House of Representatives, six-year terms for the Senate and four-year terms for the presidency. However, the elections for the United States Senate have always been staggered—a point that I regret the Government have not taken on board—so that each voter in every state has the opportunity to cast their verdict on the Senate no more than four years apart. That point seems to have passed by some of those on the Government Benches.
Thomas Docherty
For the benefit of those Lib Dems who are only arriving now, so very late to the debate, may I ask my hon. Friend whether she agrees with the following point made tonight by the leader of Plaid Cymru and others—that confusion will be caused by having two elections on the same day, especially as they will be preceded by TV debates with on one night the party leader for the UK saying that his party will pursue one policy and the following night the party leader in Wales or Scotland saying something else?
Sheila Gilmore
I absolutely agree. The problem is not to do with people taking different positions; it is to do with what will happen in the month or few weeks before an election when the issues are being debated on the hustings and being reported in the newspapers. I have an awful vision of us running two sets of hustings and trying to get people to come out to slightly chilly church halls to listen to completely different debates on different nights—although it is perfectly possible to get people to come out to such events when elections take place at different times. Why make this happen when we do not have to?
Sheila Gilmore
I agree with my right hon. Friend. Yet again, that is another aspect of a situation that we are creating. Apparently—the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) let the cat out of the bag—this is being done not for any good and strong constitutional reason or because we can argue about the history of the past 200 years, but because it suits this coalition Government to have this Parliament last for five years. It suits them to have this provision wrapped up with the other parts of the Bill, which will be debated later, to try to ensure that the coalition holds together. This is being wrapped up as a constitutional Bill and it is being presented as something that will last into the future but, given our constitution, it is possible for a future Parliament to change that, so we are not entrenching things.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend mentions the future. Has she, like me, worked out that if we have a second five-year term, we will run slap bang into the local government elections in Scotland, which we have put back by a year? We would then have an even worse situation than the one in 2007, with a general election and the local government elections leading to hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballot papers.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank my hon. Friend for that information, because it adds to the important case that we are presenting. The people who find this highly amusing clearly have not had the experience that we had. It is incumbent on a Government who said that they would want to look at the evidence and make decisions on the basis of hard facts to listen to the evidence being given by people who have been through this process and who understand the complexities of devolution in a situation where we still have a UK Government. We have had experience of this, as have the elected bodies, which have given their view very clearly to the UK Government but have been ignored. They were not consulted before this, but they gave their view and told of their experience, so it is not asking too much of any Government to say, “Perhaps we have not got this right.”
Perhaps the simplest thing for the Government to do is not to try to see whether they could slip the election by a month, as has been suggested by some people. That would represent the worst of all possible worlds for the voters, let alone for the political parties. The simplest thing would be to say, “We have got this wrong, but we believe in fixed-term Parliaments.” The Labour party proposed fixed-term Parliaments in its manifesto and the Liberals believe in them too. I am not sure whether the Conservatives believe in them, but they introduced this legislation so presumably they now do. We all seem to agree that there should be fixed-term Parliaments. On that basis, why are we having this debate? Because the coalition Government are so determined to stick to their first thought, which was to have five years.
The Government may be doing that only for advantage and to feel that they have the longest possible time in which to be the Government. I have to say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that she and others on the Government Benches may feel that they have an entitlement to sit for five years, having been elected, but a lot of people in the country have a very different view. The majority party in the coalition did not get a majority for its policies. The junior partner in the coalition went to the people on a different set of policies, so the people who voted for the Liberals did not vote for the programme of this coalition Government. The Government’s approach seems particularly unfortunate for democracy in this country, given that the Government do not have a mandate to rule in the majoritarian fashion that they are doing.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Thomas Docherty Excerpts(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Cash
Wait a minute. That is so for the very simple reason that many people have a visceral hatred of both parties and therefore think, wrongly, that they are voting for another party that will do them some good—we have a different view about that.
I regard this as a lambs-to-the-slaughter Bill—this is why I insist on the threshold—because of what would happen under these arrangements to a number of Conservative MPs if they were to get less than 50% of the vote, as they did in the last election. I have calculated that 60 Conservative MPs had Liberal Democrats in second place. My sense of friendship for my colleagues suggests to me that putting as many as 60 seats on the line is a very high price to pay for the purposes of something so central to the coalition. The figures I have show that those who would be affected range from my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who got 34.9% of the vote, to my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who got 49.7%. All those Members would be largely at risk, although some more so than others, and something will depend on the boundary changes. I cannot understand how my party can make arrangements that take those lambs to the slaughter. This is extraordinary and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reply.
Mr Cash
I have voted consistently against this Bill and I will continue to do so, for the reasons that I have given. It behoves some of us to act both with consistency and in principle against things that were not in our manifesto—in fact, it is the opposite because our manifesto declared that we were not in favour of the alternative vote. Furthermore, there was complete silence on the question of threshold until we received the Bill.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is probably one of the longest-serving parliamentarians. Will he clarify whether he believes that the House of Lords should be bound to follow the manifesto commitment convention or, given that this provision was not in his party’s manifesto, that the House of Lords is perfectly entitled to disregard that convention?
Mr Cash
That is a very good question.
My final point is that leaving this ultimately House of Commons issue—it is about voting here in the House of Commons—to the House of Lords is absolutely disgraceful. This issue should not be resolved in the House of Lords. I have heard a number of my hon. Friends, for whom I have the greatest respect on most matters, churning this out and I simply think it is unacceptable. This is a matter for the House of Commons; it is about our electors, our constituencies, our constitution and the freedom of choice at the ballot box. I utterly reject this Bill and I utterly reject the idea of AV. I strongly urge hon. Members to vote with me on the threshold provision that stands in my name.
Thomas Docherty
My maths is not fantastic, but does the hon. Lady accept that she is talking about a turnout of up to 49.9% with 25% voting yes and 24% voting no, and that many constituencies do not get such turnouts at general elections?
Mrs Laing
The hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. A referendum is not an election; it is a completely different part of the democratic process. The hon. Member for Rhondda and others have compared turnouts in general and local elections, in which voters choose between three, four or five candidates, with referendums, but they are not the same. If they were, a referendum would be called an election. A referendum is a plebiscite. In a referendum, the people are consulted on a particular issue on a yes or no vote; that is not the same as an election and comparisons between the two regarding turnout or other aspects are therefore irrelevant. The simple, inescapable principle is that a change to the voting system is a significant constitutional change; that is why the Government have decided to have a referendum—and rightly so. The outcome of a referendum to change our constitution must be, and must be seen to be, decisive. It must command confidence and respect and it should not be challengeable. If there is a derisory turnout, the result will not command respect or confidence. Indeed, it is worse that that.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I should like to make a bit of progress.
The Bill has been amended during its passage through this House. The Government accepted the Electoral Commission’s findings on the question—something that found support right across the House. The Bill also now includes detailed provision for the combination of the referendum with the other elections on 5 May, making the poll easier to run and allowing savings to be made.
Many Members have drawn attention to the constitutional importance of the changes that we propose: changes to deliver more equal constituencies, a House of Commons of reasonable size, and a referendum to give people a choice over their voting system. The Government recognise the significance of these measures. We also recognise that Members are not simply being asked to vote on these matters in the abstract, but that the changes have real consequences for Members of this House and for their constituents.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister, who has joined us for the first time after eight days of debate. Can he confirm to the House whether he read the Gould report personally before he picked the date of 5 May for the referendum?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I read reports of the Gould report. I did not read every single word of the Gould report itself, but I read enough to tell me that it conclusively showed that the problem with the combination of votes in Scotland arose because of the unique nature of the ballot papers in those local elections, which were extremely confusing to voters who were voting in two elections at the same time. By contrast, next May I think it will be uncomplicated for people to vote in devolved elections, in local elections in England, and on a simple yes or no answer to the referendum question.