Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Tom Harris Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

We have had an excellent debate, kicked off by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for the Opposition. I cannot let this debate pass without remarking on the fact that he intends that to be his final speech from the Front Bench. He has said that he will retire from the Front Bench: he has done 30 years of hard labour on the Opposition and Government Front Benches and has given distinguished service. He has been called many things: my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) referred to Barbara Castle’s remarks about how he had a degree of low cunning about him. I must say that I have found him wily as I have worked for him over the past few years, and wise. I thank him for the time that he has given to junior Ministers and spokespeople. He has always been illuminating to work with, and we will all miss his speeches from the Front Bench, although I am sure that we can look forward to many more from him from the Back Benches in future.

As my right hon. Friend explained, we agree with the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, although we believe that it should be for a shorter period than the proposed five years. We had a manifesto commitment to a fixed term favouring four years, and for that reason we will not be voting against Second Reading. However, the House should not misinterpret that as anything more than our agreeing with the principle behind the Bill. We have grave concerns about many of the measures proposed in it, about its timing, and about the way in which the proposals have been developed—although “developed” may be too grand a word for a Bill that seems to have been thrown together on the Deputy Prime Minister’s whim and then repeatedly altered as each new problem has emerged, all without the slightest effort to consult anyone else. As many Members have said today, that is not a recipe for good legislation.

We shall be looking closely at the details of the Bill and suggesting amendments. Indeed, it might be better if the Government took the whole thing away and started again from scratch, given the confused and shifting mishmash that appears to be before us and that so casually sets about riding roughshod over one constitutional convention after another. Little thought seems to have been invested in the devising of a scheme that works before the appearance of legislation to implement one that probably will not. Given that the Leader of the House—who is present now—suggested this morning that the present parliamentary Session would continue for two years, why should the Government not take the opportunity to take the Bill away, consult on it properly, and return with something that is in rather fitter shape?

It is almost as if the Deputy Prime Minister does not really care whether the Bill works or not, as long as he can send a reassuring signal to his parliamentary party and his Tory ministerial collaborators that this Parliament will last for five years, whatever the strains—which are already showing—may be in the interim. The rapidly changing provisions, the substantial but unthought-through shifts that we have already witnessed, the thoughtless interference with long-standing constitutional conventions which have been mentioned by many Members on both sides of the House, the indecent haste with which a major constitutional Bill has been introduced when there was no need for it to be rushed through the House, the total lack of consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny referred to not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Select Committee—all those things make us suspicious about what the true motivations might be.

So what is really going on behind the overblown rhetoric of the Prime Minister and, in particular, the Deputy Prime Minister, who specialises in it, about the purpose of their constitutional innovations? The Prime Minister says that he wants to give power away, while the Deputy Prime Minister says that he is embarking on a programme of constitutional reform more extensive than any since the great Reform Act. Of course, he forgets just how minimal the reforms of 1832 actually were in substance. In reality, little or no justification has been offered beyond the rhetoric.

We have heard from Members in all parts of the House—from the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), from the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) in interventions, from the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) in very witty speeches, from the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) in a rather more portentous but very serious speech, and from the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), who has form in this regard—some alternative theories about what might be going on. The truth is that the Deputy Prime Minister is using vastly overblown claims to hide a tawdry piece of fixing that took place over a few days in a testosterone-filled room packed with erstwhile political enemies who were intent on one thing: producing a political stitch-up that could deliver government to both parties, while preventing each from double-crossing the other for the duration of a Parliament. The fact that they decided to do that by using novel constitutional props is absolutely clear from the proposals that emerged.

Far from being born out of some kind of reforming zeal, and far from being derived from a carefully thought- out analysis of what is wrong with our current constitutional arrangement, the Bill was born out of a suddenly discovered political imperative to save the necks and promote the ministerial careers of those who negotiated it. That is what it looks like to us, because that is what it is. Let us have done with the overblown deputy prime ministerial rhetoric and just call a spade a spade. The long title of this Bill should be “A Bill to ensure that the inherent contradictions in the coalition Government are suppressed for a full five years; to make sure that neither party can double cross the other; and for connected purposes.” That would be a bit nearer the mark.

Those Government Members who are slavishly following the Government—many are not—may protest that I am being too cynical. If I am wrong, how come such an important piece of constitutional reform was not in both parties’ manifestos? It was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto; they were in favour of a four-year fixed term in their policy, but we appear to have a five-year term in the Bill. How come the Bill has not been afforded the opportunity of pre-legislative scrutiny, or preceded by a Green Paper, White Paper or draft Bill? How come it did not involve all-party consultations and discussions with a view to reaching cross-party agreement, which there may have been some possibility of reaching? How come the Bill has changed in substance more than once as the repeated announcement of ill-thought-through expedients has hit the reality of their not actually being workable or acceptable in the cold light of day?

How come the Bill is in such a poor state that the Clerk of the House has indicated that it has the potential to allow the courts, and even the European Court, to be second-guessing the Speaker, the monarch and this House on such fundamentally political issues as the date of the general election, or whether or not a confidence motion has been passed? It is not just me asking these questions. The hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) and the hon. Member for North East Somerset all asked this precise question.

The Bill contains too many novel and contentious constitutional principles to be dealt with in the arrogant and high-handed way that is becoming a hallmark of the Deputy Prime Minister’s dealings with this House. The subjects that the Bill addresses are constitutionally fundamental; there is no doubt about that. It ends prerogative powers to dissolve but not to prorogue Parliament—something Charles I would probably have been able to work with—but with the potential to drag the monarch into party political controversy, which would be highly undesirable in this day and age. It introduces the novel, ill-thought-though and potentially dangerous concept of super-majorities into parliamentary proceedings.

As our Clerk has warned, and as the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon set out, the Bill puts elements of parliamentary procedure into statute, thus fundamentally changing the nature of the legislature’s relationship with the judiciary by potentially forcing it to decide what we meant to do in parliamentary proceedings that have hitherto been unavailable to judicial interpretation, thus potentially politicising the judiciary; a most undesirable outcome. The possibility of this is the danger, not the probability, as the hon. and learned Member made clear. I agree with him.

The Bill refers to confidence motions without defining them, thus potentially requiring judges to define them in court proceedings. It draws the monarch and the Speaker into the most party-political aspects of parliamentary proceedings with the obvious risk that their deliberations and actions will be tarnished with party-political controversy of a kind wholly alien to our constitutional arrangements. As we have heard from many hon. Members, the Bill has a serious impact on the devolved institutions of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales because of the planned date of the election. If the Deputy Prime Minister had bothered to consult in advance, that particular difficulty might have been pointed out to him so that he could have avoided it.

It is reasonable for any Government to propose constitutional changes, but there is a proper and improper way of doing it. This is not the best way of handling constitutional issues. Why the rush? This is the big question that many of us have been asking during the course of the debate. There is no need for such an ill-thought-through Bill to be before us. The coalition agreement on 12 May said that there would be a “binding motion” placed before the House, whatever that is. I thought that most of our motions were binding. That was to be followed by legislation for a five-year fixed term during which a vote of 55% of Members would be needed to bring the Government down. It just so happened that the combined strength of Tory and Lib Dem Members in this Parliament is 56%, so this represented a clear effort to strengthen the Executive at the expense of the legislature, not to mention preventing the parties to the coalition agreement from ratting on each other.

The furore that ensued has led the Deputy Prime Minister to think again, and that is a good thing, but by the time of the publication of the coalition’s programme for government on 20 May this remained the policy. By the Queen’s Speech on 25 May, the legislation had been brought forward to be a major priority in the first Session, although we were still promised the binding motion. The Deputy Leader of the House promised it to us before the summer recess, but in the event it did not appear. Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister ought occasionally to inform his ministerial colleagues about the back-flips that he plans to execute before they assure the House that the Government are going to do something that he has already decided not to do.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has given the House a superb explanation of why this is a rotten Bill; anyone who came into the Chamber just after she began her comments might mistakenly believe that the Labour party is opposing this Bill. She has given many good reasons why we should oppose it, but can she try to explain to me why on earth we are going to be sitting on our backsides during the Division?

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend will do what he wants with his backside when the Division gets called; I am sure that he is capable of making his own mind up. We have made it clear that although we are not voting against the Bill on Second Reading, whether we support it on Third Reading will depend on how well it is put right in the interim.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee:

“We felt that”—

the resolution—

“was necessary on the assumption that the legislation would then come much further down the track.”

Why not put the legislation further down the track, in order to enable proper consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny to take place and to allow there to be properly considered measures, with cross-party agreement, that might actually work?

By that time, the measures that the Deputy Prime Minister had announced were already unravelling, because those in the testosterone-filled room of self-interest of the coalition builders, who came up with the 55% super-majority, were so focused on protecting themselves against mutual duplicity that they failed to consider little issues such as the sovereignty of Parliament and other constitutional conventions relating to Dissolution. The proposals in the programme for government were running into the sand; all it took was the light of day and the unravelling began.

By 5 July, the Deputy Prime Minister had changed his mind again, but alas the new proposals are not better; they are just different. The 55% super-majority has been abandoned in favour of a 66% one, which appears unlikely to be used. I say in all seriousness to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), for whom I have a lot of time, because he has great difficulties in his Department: what is the rush? We are at the beginning of this Parliament, so why not consult? Why not seek cross-party agreement? What on earth is the argument against doing so? Why not have pre-legislative scrutiny on such an important constitutional Bill? Why not allow the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to do its job, instead of making it rush? Why not allow the time for concerns expressed by the Clerk about the risk to the privileges of the legislature to be properly addressed? Just asserting in the newspapers that he is wrong does not amount to a refutation of his arguments. Why was his informed advice not heeded a little more in the drafting of this Bill? Is it right that a Bill that provides for such massive constitutional innovation should be introduced five days before the House rises for the summer recess and debated one week after its return, given that the Leader of the House has just announced that this Session of Parliament will go on for two years?

The truth is that the Bill is a reflection of the Minister in charge of it and the political imperatives that led to its being devised. Our over-confident yet vacillating Deputy Prime Minister, who keeps changing his mind every few weeks about what should be in this legislation, appears armed only with his grandiose delusions of constitutional good sense and that characteristic overblown Lib Dem sense of self-importance, which all those who fight the Lib Dems at a local level will recognise very well. One wonders how much he is listening to, or absorbing and considering properly, the advice he must be getting. This is a dangerous combination for our constitutional settlement. We cannot and should not accept that constitutional arrangements that have worked well for centuries should be thrown away hubristically and without thought by a Deputy Prime Minister who cares only for his own neck and the short-term expedient of remaining in his post for a full Parliament.

We have a Deputy Prime Minister who flits from the whim of introducing super-majorities to allowing judges to tell us whether or not we can have an election, and who does not seem to understand that the sovereignty of Parliament and the independence of the Speaker are important principles that we should defend. We have a Deputy Prime Minister who appears more interested in lofty rhetoric about how radical his constitutional innovations are than the detailed work needed to make them both desirable and workable in practice. Members of this House will have to do the work for him. Her Majesty’s Opposition will play our part; we will seek to subject the Bill to the scrutiny it needs, and I also reiterate the fact that we intend to review whether to continue to support the Bill on Third Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

And I know my right hon. Friend always means what he says.

The Bill’s key principle is that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is giving up the power to seek the Dissolution of the House. Previous Prime Ministers have exercised that power for their own party advantage. That principle of having fixed-term Parliaments was welcomed by the Chairman of the Select Committee and by the right hon. Member for Blackburn, who speaks for the Opposition; indeed it was in his party’s manifesto.

At this point, I should just add to the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister last week and the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood today. I will miss the contributions from the Front Bench of the right hon. Member for Blackburn. He and I have sparred in this Chamber a number of times, and I have always listened carefully to the guidance he has given me on how to deal with the House. I hope Members feel I have learned something from him. I leave it up to others to decide whether what I have learned is, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) said, low cunning or whether I have some way to go in that regard. I should say that I thought the right hon. Gentleman dealt very well with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) about what happened in 1950 and how that could perfectly well have been dealt with by our Bill. The expert way in which the right hon. Gentleman did that showed that he is secretly quite supportive of the Bill.

[Mr Tom Harris]

Does the Minister understand that it is rather difficult for the House to accept that from the Conservative party’s point of view this Bill represents a point of principle, given that every single Conservative Member of Parliament was elected on the promise that in this Parliament the replacement of the Prime Minister would result in a general election within six months? That surely says more about the Prime Minister’s confidence in the support of his Back Benchers than it does about his confidence in the principle of constitutional reform.

[Mr Harper]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said, in the last Parliament, when Conservative Members had the opportunity to discuss this matter, we did not vote against it. It is a very clear principle in the coalition agreement to have a fixed-term Parliament. All Members on the Opposition Benches—or at least in the main Opposition party—were elected on that principle. I am sure that they will support the Bill if there is a Division this evening.

The proposals this morning from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the way we want to change the Sessions of this place to fit in with this Bill can, I am confident, be debated in Committee. We debated them a little earlier today and I think that the fact that the Chair allowed that debate to take place shows that they are in order and that we will be able to debate them in Committee.