Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Tuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill (Business of the House)
Tuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:03 - The House divided: - Ayes: 312 / Noes: 295 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I should inform the House that I have selected an amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). In a moment, I will ask the Leader of the House to move the business of the House motion. I simply want to emphasise to the House that the vote on Second Reading of the Bill must come no more than four hours after the start of proceedings on the business of the House motion. There is an amendment to it, as I have just said, which I have selected, and of course colleagues are free to debate the motion and the amendment. May I gently encourage and exhort the House not to exhaust itself in so doing, because the deadline for the vote on Second Reading is as I have described, and I can inform the House that several colleagues wish to speak on the substance of the Bill? Moreover—gentle hint—the business of the House motion is potentially subject to a closure motion after a reasonable period of debate. I hope that that is helpful to the House.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
I beg to move,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Early Parliamentary General Election Bill:
Timetable
(1) (a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order.
(b) Notices of amendments, new Clauses or new Schedules to be moved in Committee of the whole House may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.
(c) Proceedings on Second Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(d) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
(2) As soon as the proceedings on the Motion for this Order have been concluded, the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill shall be read.
(3) When the Bill has been read a second time:
(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
(b) the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
(4) (a) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the whole House, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.
(b) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
(5) If, following proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on Consideration of the Bill, a legislative grand committee withholds consent to the Bill or any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill, the House shall proceed to Reconsideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(6) If, following Reconsideration of the Bill—
(a) a legislative grand committee withholds consent to any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill (but does not withhold consent to the whole Bill and, accordingly, the Bill is amended in accordance with Standing Order No. 83N(6)), and
(b) a Minister of the Crown indicates his or her intention to move a minor or technical amendment to the Bill, the House shall proceed to consequential Consideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(7) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (1), the Chairman or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply—
(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and shall not put any other questions, other than the question on any motion described in paragraph (18)(a) of this Order.
(8) On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
(9) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (7)(c) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chairman or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.
(10) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (7)(d) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chairman shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause or Schedule of the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(11) (a) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(12) Paragraphs (2) to (11) of Standing Order No. 83F (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (11) of this Order.
Subsequent stages
(13) (a) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(14) Paragraphs (2) to (9) of Standing Order No. 83G (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on further messages from the Lords) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (13) of this Order.
Reasons Committee
(15) Paragraphs (2) to (6) of Standing Order No. 83H (Programme orders: reasons committee) apply in relation to any committee to be appointed to draw up reasons after proceedings have been brought to a conclusion in accordance with this Order.
Miscellaneous
(16) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply so far as necessary for the purposes of this Order.
(17) Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
(18) (a) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken, to recommit the Bill or to vary or supplement the provisions of this Order.
(b) No notice shall be required of such a Motion.
(c) Such a motion may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly. (d) The Question on such a Motion shall be put forthwith; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (c) shall thereupon be resumed. (e) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on such a Motion.
(19) (a) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.
(b) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(20) No debate shall be held in accordance with Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) at today’s sitting after this Order has been agreed.
(21) Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(22) No private business may be considered at today’s sitting after this Order has been agreed.
I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that I do not wish to detain the House unduly. I hope that the House will support this business of the House motion so that we can move on to consider the stages of this Bill. This is a straightforward business of the House motion that will facilitate consideration of a short Bill, so that the House can agree the date of a general election. The motion sets aside up to six hours for consideration of the Bill, including up to four hours for the Second Reading, with the remaining time for Committee of the whole House and remaining stages.
To have a pre-Christmas election on 12 December, this Bill will need Royal Assent by 5 November for the House to dissolve just after midnight on 6 November. That general election timetable allows for the Northern Ireland Budget Bill to pass before Dissolution to ensure the Northern Ireland civil service can access the funding it needs to deliver public services and proper governance. The situation facing a number of Northern Ireland Departments has become critical, and the Bill is needed to allow the Northern Ireland civil service to continue to access the cash needed to deliver public services.
To ensure that the Bill receives Royal Assent to allow for Dissolution on 6 November and allow the 25 working days for the administration of the poll, it needs to proceed quickly. We have therefore proposed in the business motion that all Commons stages of the Bill happen today.
The Bill before the House is only two clauses long so is a very short Bill. It is also a simple Bill in that it seeks only to set the polling day as 12 December. The House should not therefore be disadvantaged by considering all stages of the Bill in one day.
Turning to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the Government’s business motion provides for an efficient timetable for the consideration of this Bill, which is a straightforward piece of legislation for an election on 12 December. Of course, the Government recognise that the selection of amendments is a matter for the Speaker or Chairman of Ways and Means; however, it is entirely standard practice in this House for amendments not to be taken from Back-Bench MPs on Bills as simple as this one where an expedited timetable is required. While it may not be a wrecking amendment in itself, there is no doubt that it is a gateway to amendments that could seek to obstruct the Bill. The Bill is simply designed to give effect to what all four of the biggest parties in this House have now said they support—a December general election—nothing more, nothing less.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Once upon a time, the Leader of the House was a champion of this House, but since he became Leader of the House he seems to be trying to curtail debate on every Government Bill. I know that he has had a long-running, if polite, dispute with the Speaker, but will he explain to us paragraph (3)(b) and why he felt it was necessary to say
“the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.”?
The Speaker is never in the Chair when we are in Committee. Why does the Leader of the House feel it necessary to say that this afternoon?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady and I served on the Procedure Committee together, and she must be aware that this is completely standard whenever the Speaker leaves the Chair to go into Committee. It has been standard for decades, if not for centuries, and there is nothing unusual in it. If anyone thinks that this is in any way a dig at you, Mr Speaker, they simply do not understand the procedures of this House. I note that you are indicating that you are in assent with what I am saying. I am frankly surprised that the hon. Lady, who is a distinguished member of the Procedure Committee, is unaware of that basic procedure.
So it is just a December general election, nothing more and nothing less. There will be six weeks to discuss all the great political questions facing our country before the people are given the chance to give their verdict, but the debate today is not about those great issues; it is simply about setting 12 December as the date for a general election.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for the business motion. The House is surprised and alarmed at the state of the Government for moving a motion for a general election in this way. The Leader of the House said yesterday that the Bill would be published this morning. It was a great disservice to the House that it was not available yesterday. It is just one line. We are now debating a programme motion to introduce the Bill in one day.
Yesterday, the Government called a vote under the terms of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, but they did not have the necessary majority. They did not get the magic 434 votes to give them a two-thirds majority in the House, so they are now introducing another Bill. Will the Government now repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act? This Bill will be pushed through in one day and will then come back from the Lords. The Leader of the House criticised the first and second European Union withdrawal agreement Bills, which similarly had few clauses, yet he and the Government are now doing exactly the same. As you have stated, Mr Speaker, the whole process will take six hours, with the Second Reading vote coming four hours after the start of proceedings, and with one amendment having been tabled. I think that this is another way to crash out of the EU without a deal, because the Government have not met their target of 31 October. This programme motion is unacceptable. It has been deliberately designed to avoid scrutiny of the Government.
Speaking of programme motions, the withdrawal agreement Bill is in limbo, in purgatory or in the ether. When this House was asking for a proper programme motion on the Bill that would have enabled hon. Members to have a proper discussion and to discuss, debate and amend where necessary, the Government did not want to give us that time. They did not want to deal with leaving the EU in an orderly way for businesses, farmers, working people and the environment. The Leader of the House will know that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said yesterday:
“Surely the proportionate and sensible thing is to offer the House more time. If it does not vote for it, the Government will take their course, but surely they should at least try.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2019; Vol. 667, c. 138.]
The Leader of the House made it clear yesterday in his response to the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir David Lidington) that he had no intention of bringing the withdrawal agreement Bill back to the House. Why? Why can we not have a proper debate on the Bill, with a new programme motion and with amendments being tested in a vote? Then we could see where the House stood on this issue.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Will the shadow Leader of the House cast her mind back to the Second Reading debate for the withdrawal agreement Bill? Perhaps she will recall that Labour ran out of speakers some one hour before the end of the debate. Why does she therefore need more time?
Valerie Vaz
If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I was saying, he would know that we need more time so that we can amend the Bill to take everyone’s views into account. We did not have an opportunity to amend it or even to vote on it.
We tried to have discussions, but the Government were not listening. Yesterday, in response to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), the Leader of the House said that
“the reason for not bringing forward an allocation of time motion is that the House has made its mind clear: it does not want to deal or engage seriously with the withdrawal agreement Bill.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2019; Vol. 667, c. 134.]
How did he know that? I think that that is highly patronising. We have been begging for extra time so that we could have the votes, so that the House’s views would be clear. The reason that the Bill needed further discussion, as he knows, is that there would be a border down the Irish Sea—that was the reason that the previous Prime Minister ruled this out—or that it would result in the break-up of the United Kingdom. The Leader of the House should do the right thing by the House and reintroduce the withdrawal agreement Bill with a new programme motion that could be agreed with the usual channels and that took into account all sides of the debate. That would help the country to move on.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward this very interesting business motion this afternoon. Here we are, once again, considering another programme motion. I am pretty certain that the Government are full and sick of these cursed things. Who knows?—after the contribution from the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), we might be heading for meaningful programme motion No. 2. I was beginning to sense that Labour Members were about to oppose this motion, which could mean that the Bill would not progress. My message to everyone is that if they are intent on getting their Brexmas decorations out, perhaps they should just wait a moment until this has been concluded.
We could have had all this done and dusted by now. It could all have been settled in October, and the Commons could have been reassembling right now to get on with the business that our constituents find important, but the Prime Minister’s bluff and bluster have brought us here to a deadlocked Parliament, a broken Britain and the spectre of the Government’s hard Brexit still looming over us. However, there are now a few things that we know as we consider this programme motion. They will not get their no deal, which is good, and the Prime Minister will not be able to bring back his withdrawal agreement until the British people have had their say, but probably most importantly, he has failed to get the United Kingdom out of the European Union on Thursday. Remember, it was “do or die”, “no ifs, no buts” and “die in a ditch”. This was the very basis of his Tory leadership campaign and his solemn pledge to his party. The Kippers, the Faragists and the right-wing Tories must feel like total mugs today, because he has not delivered and he will soon be judged.
The date on the Bill is 12 December, and we all know that a poll in December is less than ideal. In some of the highland parts of my constituency, for example, it gets dark about 3.30 pm at that time of year. It is probably worse for some of my colleagues. However, it is worth that risk in order that we remove this Prime Minister. Calling an election by driving through a Bill in just one day is also less than ideal. We will have six hours to consider all these details, and using a programme motion to clamp down on any kind of amendment is absolutely objectionable. That is why we are supporting the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) today.
It has never been the practice of the Scottish National party to vote with the Tories in this House on programme motions, and we will not be supporting them on this today, but we will not be standing in the way of the Bill. We will not vote with the Tories on the programme motion, but we will back the general election that this country definitely needs to break the Brexit deadlock and make Scotland’s voice heard loud and clear.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman know where his partner, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), is, because she has not bothered to turn up for the debate? I thought this was something they had agreed together.
Pete Wishart
I say to the hon. Lady in all gentle candour that to categorise the Liberal Democrats as the Scottish National party’s partner could not be further from the truth. We are delighted that they have come along with us to try to promote and progress this agenda. Sometimes, the Liberal Democrats have their values and their uses, although not very often.
The challenge for the Government is to get the numbers for this programme motion, and it is really up to the rest of the parties to decide what they are going to do today. The message from the Scottish National party is that we want no part of this shambolic Brexit; we want the right to decide our own future in Scotland. We will do our bit. We will take on the Tories, and we will beat them in Scotland. It is up to the other parties to have the courage and self-belief that they can beat the Tories. We will be back in even greater numbers in this House following this election, and we will continue to progress our nation’s independence and demand that it is Scotland’s right to choose the future it wants, based on the decisions of the Scottish people.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment (a), in paragraph (7) after subparagraph (b) insert—
“(ba) the Question on any amendment, new Clause or new Schedule selected by the Chair for separate decision;”.
Amendments (a) is about ensuring that whatever happens today the House can know that it was fair play. Last night, the Leader of the House told this place that, while we could not see the Bill before today, we could see the programme motion. A whole one copy was made available in the Table Office after 10 pm, and it showed that what the Government were trying to do was, in simple terms, rig today’s debate by removing the part of the Standing Orders that allows the Chair of proceedings the right to select any amendment, new clause or new schedule for vote.
To do that late at night, without any consultation with the Opposition and in the hope that nobody would notice, is frankly—I hope the Leader of the House understands this concept—not cricket. It is to admit that, rather than win the case for this Bill as it stands, the Executive want no challenge to it at all, and that, whether one thinks it is a good Bill or not, should be worry for us all. If we let this lie now, it will become standard practice in future.
This is not the first time the Government have tried such a measure when backed into a corner. They also did it on 24 October last year with Northern Ireland legislation. Thankfully, the Government saw sense and agreed to restore it, which is what amendment (a) would do today. It does not amend the Bill itself and does not encourage any particular selection; it simply reinstates the concept of fair play in this House by restoring our Standing Orders as they would be for any other legislation. In doing so it repairs both our rulebook and, frankly, our reputation.
Letting this programme motion through without the full list of rules is like letting Lance Armstrong keep his medals or Maradona benefit from the hand of God or accepting Major Ingram as a winner of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”—[Interruption.] That reaction is the point in case. Let us not confirm the reputation that the public already think we have of backroom deals, cheats and liars. Whatever one thinks of this Bill , let it be won by fair play today, let us use the rulebook that has always been used, and add amendment (a) to this programme motion.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Tuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Before I invite the Prime Minister to move the Second Reading, I must announce my decision on certification for the purposes of Standing Order No. 83J (Certification of bills etc. as relating exclusively to England or England and Wales and being within devolved legislative competence), with which I feel sure colleagues will be closely familiar. On the basis of material put before me, I certify that in my opinion the Bill does not meet the criteria required for certification under that Standing Order.
I will make a public service announcement now. Under the terms of the business of the House motion, as amended, which the House has just passed, amendments for the Committee stage of the Bill may now be accepted by the Clerks at the Table only. Members may continue to table amendments up until the start of proceedings in the Committee of the whole House. For the benefit of everyone, however, I would encourage Members to table their amendments as soon as possible. The Chairman of Ways and Means will take a provisional decision on selection and grouping on the basis of amendments tabled a quarter of an hour after the beginning of the Second Reading debate. That provisional selection list will be made available in the Vote Office and on the parliamentary website before the start of proceedings in Committee. If necessary, an updated amendment paper will be made available as soon as possible during proceedings in Committee. The Clerk at the Table is happy, and therefore we can all be happy.
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is now a week since Parliament voted to delay Brexit yet again. It is a week since this Parliament voted yet again to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1 billion a month. In the days since then, the Government have tried to be reasonable and to ascribe the best possible motives to our friends and colleagues around the House. [Interruption.] I have twice offered more time for debate. I offered more time last week and I made the same offer last night. I said that we were prepared to debate this Bill—[Interruption.] I said we were prepared to debate the withdrawal Bill around the clock to allow Parliament time to scrutinise it, to the point of intellectual exhaustion. We must bear in mind that not only has this House been considering this issue for three and a half years, but last week when this Bill was being debated there was not a single new idea and not a single new suggestion. All they wanted was more time, more weeks, more months, when they could not even provide the speakers to fill the time allotted.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Prime Minister for eventually giving way. [Interruption.] We can all go, “Ooh”, like children but we are actually trying to get something through. Let me go back to the comments he made when he opened his speech. Either this House voted for the Second Reading or it delayed it—he cannot have it both ways, which is what he seems to want. Would the Prime Minister like to go back over his first comments and address whether he thinks they were entirely correct, because almost everything he said seemed to me as though he might be misleading the House and the country?
The Prime Minister
I am astonished to hear that the hon. Lady thinks that she voted for the programme motion last week—that is the logic of what she said. As far as I understand it, she voted for delay. She voted to delay Brexit indefinitely. Let us be absolutely clear: the whole country can see what is really going on. Does she want to deliver Brexit? No, she doesn’t. She does not want to deliver Brexit. People can see that Opposition Members do not want to deliver Brexit. All they want to do is procrastinate. They do not want to deliver Brexit on 31 October, 31 November or even on 31 January.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister confirm that the only indicative vote that passed through this Parliament was to find alternative arrangements to the backstop and that he removed the backstop from the deal, but this remain Parliament will still not vote for it? Therefore, his call for an election is the right thing to do—let the public decide.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right and he speaks for his constituency; they want to deliver Brexit, he wants to deliver Brexit, but Opposition Members just want to spin it out forever, until the 12th of never. When the 12th of never eventually comes around, they will devise one of their complicated parliamentary procedures and move a motion for a further delay and a further extension. I have to say that this delay is becoming seriously damaging to the national interest, because families cannot plan and businesses cannot plan. Not only is the climate of uncertainty corroding trust in politics, but it is beginning to hold everybody back from making vital everyday decisions that are important for the health of our economy—decisions on buying new homes, hiring new staff and making new investments. The performance of the UK economy is, frankly, miraculous, given the stasis here in Parliament.
The Prime Minister
That is why I hope that so many of our colleagues will support this Bill today, including the Father of the House, for whom I have the highest respect.
Mr Clarke
My right hon. Friend was one of those who delayed Brexit in March by voting against departure then on the deal that had then been negotiated. He did get a majority of 30 for his deal in principle last week, and if the subsequent time of this House had been devoted to the Committee and Report stage of the House, following the ordinary principles of government, we would be well on our way to leaving in the middle of November. I respectfully say to my right hon. Friend: can he find a slightly better basis for fighting this election when we get to the campaign in due course?
The Prime Minister
I am afraid that my right hon. and learned Friend is in error; I voted for the withdrawal Bill. I hope that he will vote for this Bill today to get Brexit done.
The Prime Minister
I take his nod as assent to that proposition, because that is the way—
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)
Will the Prime Minister look at the amendment tabled in my name, which suggests that if we work seven days a week—like many of my constituents do—we could get the Brexit Bill through and meet his deadline? Is not a Brexit in the hand better than two Brexits in the bush?
The Prime Minister
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know wants to deliver Brexit. I am afraid that the idea he puts forward is one that we have tried twice. We tried it last week and we tried it last night. It would have been a good offer for the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) to take up. He refused to take it up, and we are left with no choice but to go to the country to break free from this impasse, and to allow us all to submit, as we must in all humility, to the judgment of the electorate—to allow us to make our case and, above all, to allow a new and revitalised Parliament, with a new mandate to deliver on the will of the people and get Brexit done.
That new Parliament, in just a few weeks’ time, will have before it a great new deal with the EU—a great new deal, which brings together Members from across the House, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) mentioned earlier. It will be the job of that new Parliament, in just a few weeks’ time, to ratify the withdrawal deal and put an end to this long period of parliamentary dither and delay.
I am glad to say that since I first put forward the idea of a general election as a way out of this impasse, the ice floes have begun to crack. The Lib Dems are now in favour, and the Scots Nats—the Scottish National party—is now in favour of it. There is only one blockage still standing in the way of democracy. There is only one party that refuses to trust the judgment of the people. There is only one party that is still running scared of an election and that is the main party of opposition, which is failing in its defining function—[Interruption.] Well, we have not heard anything to the contrary. Dogs bark, cows moo and Oppositions are meant to campaign for elections—except for this one.
I have no way of knowing what the right hon. Member for Islington North is going to say. He has called for an election 35 times in the last year alone. I have no idea why he has been so opposed to an election. Maybe it is because he has been following the precepts of his intellectual mentor, Fidel Castro, whose adoring crowds used to serenade him with the cry, “Revoluciones sí, elecciones no!” Maybe he is congenitally opposed. Maybe he has been listening to the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), or the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who I gather have been arguing against an election. He should beware of their motives in counselling him against a general election. It is not so much that they fear a general election, though they probably do; it is just that they do not want a general election with him as their leader.
I do not know what has been holding the right hon. Gentleman back from this obvious democratic exercise, but whatever it is, I hope that he will now stand up and say that he has mastered his doubts and that he is finally willing to submit to the electorate. He has mentioned that he is a great eater of porridge. All I can say is that when it comes to the offer of elections, he reminds me of Goldilocks in his fastidiousness—one offer is too hot and one is too cold. I hope he will be able to stand up this afternoon and say, “This time, this offer of an election is just right.”
If the right hon. Gentleman does that and I hope he does, we will then be able to put that choice to the people of this country. We can go his way, which is for an economic recipe that would mean the destruction of the UK’s wealth-creating system and over-taxation of a kind that is derived from revolutionary Venezuela, combined with the political nightmare agenda of not one, but two, referendums—one on the EU and one in Scotland—with all their potential for further rancour and recrimination. As I understand it, that is his policy. Or we can go forward with this Government: a Government who have secured a great deal that allows us to leave the EU as one whole United Kingdom—as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—able together to do free trade deals around the world, able to set our own path, to make our own laws, to take back control of our borders, our money and our regulations, able to deliver all the benefits and all the freedoms of Brexit, from new free ports to more humane treatment of animals, which the right hon. Gentleman would block, from tax breaks for new technology to cutting VAT on sanitary products.
It is a deal that the Opposition said was impossible three months ago. They said we could not change the withdrawal agreement. They said that we would never get rid of the backstop, and we did. The deal is there. It is ready to be approved by a new Parliament, with a Government yearning with every fibre of their being to be able to get on and deliver our one-nation Conservative agenda, with a vision for uniting this country and levelling up with record investments in health, like nothing else in a generation, with 20,000 more police officers and more funding for every primary and secondary school in the country—levelling up across this whole United Kingdom. It will be a Government able to commit to fantastic public services and infrastructure, precisely because we believe in free markets and enterprise. We believe in free markets and enterprise and the wealth-creating sector of the economy in a way that causes a shadow of Transylvanian horror to pass over the semi-communist faces of the Opposition Front Bench.
That is the argument I want to have with the Leader of the Opposition. That is the biggest and most important difference between us—between us one-nation Conservatives and the socialists on the Opposition Benches. There is only one way now to move this country forward and to have that debate, and that is to get Brexit done. There is only one way to get Brexit done, in the face of this unrelenting parliamentary obstructionism—this endless, wilful, fingers crossed, “Not me, guv!” refusal to deliver on the mandate of the people—and that is to refresh this Parliament and to give the people a choice.
I say to the whole House and to all those who may still be hesitating about whether to vote for the Bill that there is only one way to restore the esteem in which our democracy is held and to recover the respect in which Parliament should be held by the people of this country, and that is, finally, to offer ourselves to the judgment of the people of this country. I commend the Bill to the House.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Labour backs a general election because we want this country to be rid of this reckless and destructive Conservative Government. They are a Government who have caused more of our children to live in poverty, more pensioners to be in poverty and more people to be in work and in poverty, more families to be without a home and more people to sleep rough on our streets. They are a Government who have cut and sold off so much of our important public services.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jeremy Corbyn
No, I will not. They are a Government who created the vicious hostile environment that saw our own citizens deported. It is time for real change.
I have said consistently, when no deal is off the table we will back an election. Today, after much denial and bluster by the Prime Minister, no deal is officially off the table, so this country can vote for the Government it deserves.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I shall be voting against an early election today and encourage as many of my colleagues as possible to defy the threats and blandishments, and to do so as well. The uncertainty about the outcome of a general election means that, in reality, no deal has certainly not been taken off the table.
Jeremy Corbyn
I hope my friend will join in the campaign to defeat this Government and to bring in a Government who will end injustice, poverty and inequality in this country. That is why I joined the Labour party all those years ago, and I will be very proud to take that as our message to the people of this country. I want to give our public services the funding they need and to end the threat of privatisation that hangs over so many public service workers; to stop the grotesque poverty and inequality in our country; to rebuild the economy in every region and every nation of this country; to tackle the climate emergency with a green new deal, a green industrial revolution that will bring good quality jobs to many areas of the country that have been denied them by this Government and their Liberal Democrat accomplices during the coalition years; and, after three years of Conservative failure, to get Brexit sorted—the only party that is doing so—by giving people the final say on what happens over Brexit.
We will launch the most ambitious radical campaign for real change in this country, and I look forward to campaigning in a general election all over the country, including in Uxbridge if the Prime Minister is still the Conservative candidate there at that time.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for giving way. May I say to him that, in the upcoming election, the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future will be at the front and centre? If the Scottish National party wins a majority of seats in Scotland, will he respect that result?
Jeremy Corbyn
I am looking forward to campaigning all over Scotland to support Labour candidates to be elected in Scotland. Indeed, I was there last weekend, and the enthusiasm of Scottish Labour to get out there and campaign was palpable everywhere. I am delighted to support Scottish Labour in its campaign to bring £70 billion of public investment to Scotland under a Labour Government, which is something that the SNP cannot offer.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. I look forward to campaigning with him in Scotland in the upcoming election, but, as he will know, one crucial thing in this election will be the turnout and ensuring that we get as many people out and using their votes as possible. In Scotland especially, it is very dark and very cold. Does he support the idea of having polling day as a public holiday to ensure maximum turnout?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my friend for that intervention and compliment her on her work. I agree that a public holiday on election day would be a very good idea, because it does mean that everyone could then get along to vote without the problems of being at work at that time. It is something that has been discussed before. I do not know all the amendments that are coming up later on this afternoon, Mr Speaker, but if that one were included that would be very welcome indeed.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend will know—and I raised this yesterday—that I have tabled a cross-party amendment, which is supported by many Labour colleagues, for votes at 16. The Prime Minister talks a lot about the United Kingdom. In Wales and in Scotland, 16-year-olds now have the right to vote in elections and in referendums. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that should be afforded to all 16-year-olds in the United Kingdom.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my friend for that intervention. I am coming on to that in a moment, but I absolutely do agree that all 16-year-olds should have the right to vote, because it seems fundamental to our democracy. After all, it is young people’s future that we will be debating in this election. I thank him for his intervention, and the work that he has done on bringing about parliamentary scrutiny to this whole process.
The House has amended the programme motion and it has done so in a very helpful way that empowers this Chamber, the House of Commons, to amend this legislation. I think we should just reflect for a moment that the Prime Minister was actually trying to stifle parliamentary democracy with an almost unprecedented edict that only the Government could amend their own legislation, which presumably they wrote last night. This idea of their amending today what they wrote last night suggests they have a problem, perhaps, with memory loss—I do not know what it is. I am pleased that those amendments will be debated today.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jeremy Corbyn
No, I will not give way.
What this legislation does is sum up in a couple of words the undemocratic and authoritarian instincts of this Government and this Prime Minister in relation to Parliament. I want to put on record my thanks to my friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for her persistence in tabling that amendment last night, which means that the House will have an opportunity to debate a number of very serious amendments today. We will be seeking to expand the franchise in the December election, which means supporting votes at 16, as is the case now for Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections. It also means that we support the rights of EU citizens with settled status to vote in elections in this country. After all, we do recognise their contribution to our society. We do give them votes in local elections, so it seems to me only logical that, since they have made their future in this country in our society, they should have a right to vote on their future as well, and I look forward to supporting those amendments later on today.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I look forward to getting out on the campaign trail and smashing the Conservatives at the ballot box and returning more Labour colleagues here. I am particularly pleased by what my right hon. Friend has just said around EU settled status here. We already allow our Commonwealth citizens to vote in our elections, so can we try to ensure that all EU citizens who are settled here get to vote as well?
Jeremy Corbyn
My friend is right. Commonwealth citizens have permanently had the right to vote in British elections, and that is absolutely right, and, as far as I know, most Commonwealth countries reciprocate. Our relationship with Ireland means that all Irish nationals have an automatic right to vote in UK elections and vice versa.
Jeremy Corbyn
I have already said I will not give way, but I will say it again—no!
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. He has been in the House since 2001 so he is familiar with parliamentary etiquette, which stipulates quite clearly that when somebody who has the Floor is not giving way, he should accept the verdict. He does not have a right to intervene and he should have learned that by now.
Jeremy Corbyn
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
I want to make the point that we want any election to involve as many people as possible. It is meant to be a big exercise in democracy, and I hope the amendments—
Jeremy Corbyn
I have already said that I will not give way, so I say it again for the fourth time—no!
In that election, everyone should have the right to participate. It is their future and this country’s future that is at stake.
The Prime Minister has failed in his promise to be out of the European Union, do or die, on 31 October, but it may be the date that Parliament dissolves, thereby marking the end of his tenure in office. Whatever date the House decides for the election, I am ready for it, we are ready for it. We want to be able to say to the people of this country that there is an alternative to austerity, there is an alternative to inequality, there is an alternative to sweetheart trade deals with Donald Trump, and there is an alternative of a Government who invest in all parts of the country, a Government who are determined to end injustice in our society, and a Government who are determined to give our young people a sense of hope in their society, rather than the prospects of indebtedness and insecure employment in the future, which, sadly, is all a Conservative Government and their coalition with the Lib Dems have ever brought them. I am very ready to go out there and give that message in any election whenever it comes.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I very much applaud the Prime Minister for the stand that he has taken continuously over the past months. He is doing the right thing for the right reason. Furthermore, I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition talking about autocratic, undemocratic decision making. Time and again, we have witnessed undemocratic decisions—on the Benn Act and a series of other enactments and motions—continuously over the same period of months.
The Opposition are a disgrace. They have completely undermined the democracy in this House, and have undermined the referendum—or are trying to do so. At last, they have been dragged kicking and screaming to the Dispatch Box, and it sounds as if today they are effectively going to agree that we will have a general election in December. I therefore have absolutely no compunction whatever in condemning them for their shameless behaviour and for voting against motions for an early general election over the last few months.
I am glad to say that I voted against the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill back in 2010 and 2011 during its passage through the House, and I did so for precisely the reasons that we are now having to overcome. I said at the time—on Second Reading and while discussing various amendments—that the provisions of that Bill, which the Bill we are discussing today is at last putting straight, were
“in defiance of the democratic mandate. This is about Whips and patronage; it has nothing to do with the people outside.”
I said that damage was being done to the people of this country and that there was no mandate
“of any kind for any party, in any manifesto, in any part of the political system.”
I also said that
“a motion can be passed by a simple majority of one, as has been the case from time immemorial—from the very inception of our parliamentary process in what is sometimes described as the ‘mother of Parliaments’. That is now being changed in a manner that will seriously alter the method whereby a Government may fall.”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 309-312.]
Furthermore, I added that what mattered was the constitutional principle that underpins the basis of having a simple majority in this House; this two-thirds majority has always been wrong.
Sir William Cash
I will not give way for a very simple reason, which is that both hon. Gentlemen have consistently tried to obstruct Brexit for the most specious and completely unacceptable reasons.
Mr Speaker
He has. [Interruption.] There is a rather unseemly atmosphere in here. Mr Linden, you are a very over-excitable fellow today; calm yourself. Mr Newlands next to you is clearly moderately embarrassed. He is going to try to encourage you to tread a path of virtue, and we should say three cheers to that. Meanwhile you can smile, Mr Linden, because I am about to call your leader—Mr Ian Blackford.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I have to say that I think he has just written the SNP’s leaflets for our election campaign. He says that we have tried to obstruct Brexit. Well, I would say to the House: guilty as charged. Let me explain exactly why we have done so.
We are used to referendums in Scotland. We have had two: one in 2014 and another in 2016. Crucially, we were told in 2014 that, if Scotland stayed in the United Kingdom, we would be staying in Europe. But more than that—we were told that this was going to be a Union of equals and that Scotland was going to be respected. And what has happened? In the European referendum, Scotland voted to remain in Europe by 62%, and our Parliament and Government have sought to give voice to that. We have published document after document under the title “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, in which we have sought to compromise with the United Kingdom Government, but at every step of the way—whether it was the previous Prime Minister or this one— we have been ignored.
I have repeatedly made the point—I make no apology for making it again today—that SNP Members are simply not prepared to sit back and allow Scotland to be taken out of the European Union against its will. On that basis, I welcome the opportunity of an election. Make no mistake, the coming election will be for the right of Scotland to determine its own future. We will reflect on everything that has happened since 2017, when 13 Scottish Conservatives were temporarily elected to this House. I say “temporarily” because they have voted against Scotland’s interests every step of the way, and have given no consideration to the fact that every single local authority area in Scotland voted to remain.
Just think about what Brexit would do to Scotland. Just think about the challenge we face in growing our population—a challenge that we have had for decades, but one that we have risen to on the basis of the free movement of people. Our economy is growing and European citizens have made a contribution to that economy. We have collectively benefited from the right to live, work and travel in 28 EU member states. We voted to retain those rights, yet the Conservatives want to take us out, so I really look forward to the election, when we can reinforce the mandate that we already have from the Scottish election in 2016, when the people of Scotland yet again voted the SNP into power. We have a mandate for an independence referendum, and it ill behoves this House to frustrate the legitimate demands of our Parliament and our Government. If the people of Scotland back the SNP again in the coming election, it has to be the case that we have the right to determine our future.
I am grateful that the European Union has granted us an extension to the end of January, and we must use the time wisely. But I say to our friends in Europe: please remember to stand by Scotland in our hour of need; and, as our dear friend Alyn Smith said in the European Parliament, keep a light on for Scotland because we are coming back. And that is because we are ambitious for our country. We want to grow our economy, to continue to benefit from the single market and the customs union, to make Scotland a destination in Europe, and to complete the journey that Scotland embarked on with devolution 20 years ago. We have a Parliament that has delivered for the people of Scotland and that is pushing on with addressing the challenge of climate change. We have a Parliament that is doing its job and has delivered education free at the point of need, not based on people’s ability to pay. I could go on about the differences between the way in which the Scottish Government and the UK Government have delivered for our people, and about the growing self-confidence that we see in Scotland.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
As my right hon. Friend spells out, it is going to be quite straightforward for the SNP to write its manifesto for the upcoming election. The Prime Minister has failed in his promise of “do or die”, and the Scottish Conservatives have been acting against the interests of the people of Scotland and the against the wishes in their referendum in 2016, so I wonder how easy it will be for them to be trusted in this election. Is it not true that in that election we cannot give the Scottish Conservatives or this Prime Minister any chance at all?
Ian Blackford
Absolutely, and that allows me to ask the question: where is the Prime Minister? He seems to have beetled and scuttled out of the Chamber. One wonders if he is away to dig a ditch.
One of the things I can be proud of is that we gave 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in the 2014 referendum in Scotland. Why? Because it was about their future; it was a principled decision that those who follow us, who are going to be living and working in our country, have the right to a say in its future. The SNP calls on Members to reduce the voting age to 16 for all elections, and to extend the franchise to citizens of the European Union. As we have heard in this debate, citizens from the Commonwealth are given the right to vote in our election. Why is it the case that European nationals, who are our friends—who work with us and are part of our community, and whose rights are affected by what the Conservatives want to do—do not have the right to vote in our elections? It is an absolute disgrace. Those who pay taxes in our country should have rights of representation.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether any other European countries offer European citizens not from their country the right to vote in their national elections?
Ian Blackford
If the hon. Lady had been listening, I just explained that we do that in Scotland. The problem for the Tories is that they can never make a judgment on what is the right thing to do. We are talking about EU citizens who are losing their rights.
Let me remind the House of what the Prime Minister said way back in July in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) when he asked about EU nationals having the right to vote:
“Those guarantees, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are giving unilaterally, in a supererogatory way.”—[Official Report, 25 July 2019; Vol. 663, c. 1498.]
Well, there we are—the words of the Prime Minister, doing exactly what we are calling for, yet we find that the Conservatives are blind to these calls. I therefore expect the Government today to look positively on any amendments that come forward for EU nationals. The Government have nothing to fear from extending the franchise—and of course one very important and salient point is that EU nationals are already on the voters register because they are allowed to vote in local elections. There is no moral reason for the Government not to allow this.
This is about choosing our future: our future in Europe. It is about choosing freedom from austerity. It is about opportunity. We cannot be held back any more by Westminster. The SNP will take that message to the public. Many decades ago it was said in a letter by Steinbeck to Mrs Kennedy that Scotland is not a lost cause—Scotland is a cause unwon. We will win that battle. Scotland will become an independent country and the general election will be an important step on the way to completing that journey.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
When I first arrived in this House as a new MP nearly two and a half years ago, I knew that delivering Brexit would be a complex problem. I knew that achieving a negotiation between our country and our 27 nearest neighbours was going to be a huge challenge and cover many areas. I also knew that leaving the EU with a deal was in the best interests of so many of our constituents, especially those who have shared families with other residents from other EU countries, those who have jobs in companies that trade with Europe, those who are involved in our security services and want to share data with our closest allies, and those in our scientific community who often work on collaborative projects that make a difference to our world’s future and want to continue to work with those in our neighbouring countries easily.
The deal that the previous Prime Minister delivered was challenging. Some people thought that the backstop might last forever. I always saw it as a temporary issue, but I saw it as a way to deliver Brexit and move on. I voted for it three times. Our current Prime Minister has done what nobody thought he would achieve. He has reopened the negotiations and found a different way to resolve the incredibly complex situation in Northern Ireland; it is a solution that keeps open the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. I voted for that deal too, and many colleagues from the Opposition Benches were brave enough to come through the Lobby with us to support it. I would have liked to see the programme motion carried. I believe that our constituents expect us to roll up our sleeves and work day and night to get that deal over the line. I would have liked to see a second programme motion, but I genuinely do not believe that the Opposition would have supported it.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way in which our governing party can face the electorate is to say clearly to them that the best way of delivering Brexit is with the deal that the Prime Minister has agreed with the EU?
Vicky Ford
I absolutely agree, because the deal is in the interests of our country and has been negotiated with 27 other countries.
Continuing this uncertainty does not solve anything. A second referendum will not solve the uncertainty. The Labour policy to try to renegotiate and then have another referendum and then another one does not solve the problem.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
The hon. Lady makes the case that a second referendum will not solve the Brexit impasse. I would like her to elaborate on that. On the question of the Bill which the Prime Minister proposed unamended and has now pulled, so this House cannot take it forward, surely a referendum on whether or not that proceeds would give a definitive outcome. Perhaps if the House had allowed the British public a vote on the previous Prime Minister’s deal, we could have had a definitive outcome many, many months ago.
Vicky Ford
The Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was pulled the moment the programme motion was rejected—sadly. If I believed that the Opposition truly wanted to have a couple of extra days to scrutinise it, I would give them another chance, but they proved otherwise again and again when they failed to turn up to scrutiny Committees and debates in this House.
Paul Farrelly
Does the hon. Lady recognise that for the majority of Members here who are concerned that we are leaving the EU, the main issue was not the backstop—it was a lack of clarity about the future relationship with our European neighbours and trading partners, and this second deal does not change that one iota?
Vicky Ford
The EU has made it clear since day one that we cannot discuss the detail on the future partnership until we have agreed the terms of withdrawal. That is in article 50—read it. It is only the tiniest paragraph, but it makes that clear.
The document on the future relationship covers a wide range of different issues. I have been impressed by how much the EU27 have been prepared to put into that document, including areas such as co-operation on science and security, access to trade and the deepest free trade agreement. It details important issues such as how financial services can work together in our regulatory environment, and why sharing data is so important. That is all in the future framework, but we cannot discuss the detail of it until we have agreed the terms of exit. Every time the Opposition parties say otherwise, they are being disingenuous with the British people.
Saying that we will go back and try to have another referendum in a constituency such as mine, which voted 51:49, will not heal the divisions. It just leads to a lack of decisions. In my constituency, people want to get on and focus on other things: the more police that they are now seeing on the streets, the improvements that we are seeing in our nearby hospital, the money that is coming into our NHS, the money that our schools have been asking for and is now being delivered, the infrastructure improvements that have just given my constituency the largest housing infrastructure grant in the country and unlocked a railway station that has been blocked for 20 years, and the work that we are doing on the environment—incidentally, the Lib Dems could not be bothered to turn up to the debate on the Environment Bill last night. My constituents want us to be working on those issues that affect them and their future, and not going round and round in circles on how we resolve Brexit.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I listened closely to the comments made by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). She alluded to the Lib Dems not being present last night. That is not the case. Our spokesperson for the environment—my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Jane Dodds)—was here for the entirety of the debate, as I understand it from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), so I would like that to be amended in the record.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Lady has amended the record. [Interruption.] No, no, no—I do not require any help from the hon. Member for Chelmsford. I am perfectly capable of adjudicating upon these matters on the strength of 10 and a quarter years in the Chair without her sedentary chuntering. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has corrected the record as she sees it, and the hon. Member for Chelmsford appears to accept the veracity of what she said. I was not here for that debate, but I know that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion orated in the debate, because I saw it on the annunciator. She could not have done so if she was not here. She did, so she was here.
Vicky Ford
I apologise if one Liberal Democrat Member was here last night, but as I see it, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion represents the Green party.
Mr Speaker
I am perfectly well aware of that. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree has corrected the record as far as her party is concerned. She referred to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, who was here and did speak. With the greatest of respect, there is nothing to add. A lot of other colleagues wish to speak in the debate, from whom we can now hear and in whose contributions I am sure everybody is interested.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
The question that we are grappling with in this House and, indeed, in the wider country is not just a narrow matter of our relationship with the European Union, although this debate on Brexit has exposed significant differences in how people feel about that. People’s identities of remain or leave run deep, because this is not only about whether we remain in the EU or leave; it is about who we are as a country. It is about our values. It is about whether we are open, inclusive and internationalist in our outlook, facing the future, or whether we are closed and insular, wanting to pull up the drawbridge and look to the past. That is the key question that we, as a country, need to resolve.
The Prime Minister talked about “one whole United Kingdom”. I thought he had a cheek, because he has not been acting in a way that protects our whole United Kingdom. He has sold out the people of Northern Ireland with the deal he has done with the EU. This is a man who said that no Conservative Prime Minister should ever accept a border in the Irish Sea, yet that is exactly what he has done. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I think that our United Kingdom is something precious that is worth protecting, and that Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are stronger together.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
If there was a vote across the whole country—one person, one vote—on the Prime Minister’s deal, my view is that the majority of people would vote remain. Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a great fear that, with a minority of votes, the Tories could get a majority of seats if the remain side splits, and we will end up with Brexit, thanks to her provocation?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman and I have both been campaigning for a people’s vote. I believe that the ideal way to resolve this issue is to put this specific Brexit deal to the public. He is right; I think that the public would be likely to reject this bad Brexit deal, because it is a bad deal. If we look at the polls, we have to go back some way to find the leave vote being ahead of remain, and that has been an increasingly consistent pattern in the last couple of years.
People who support Brexit struggle to agree among themselves what Brexit should look like—we see it day in, day out in this Chamber. To some people, the Prime Minister’s deal is not Brexity enough, and other people want to see a softer Brexit. The suggestion that there is a majority in the country for this specific Brexit path is wrong, which is why this needs to be put to the people for a final say. But I have campaigned for that. I have marched for that. We have argued for that. We have tabled amendments for that. We have not been able to secure it, and my fear is that we will not in this Parliament. We do not have the luxury of time, because the EU has given us an extension to 31 January. We need to resolve how we will use that time, because further extensions should not be guaranteed.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The hon. Lady and I have both stood on a platform asking for a people’s vote. My constituency is the second youngest in the country. Does she agree that it is essential that 16-year-olds have the vote, to save their future?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Lady and I agree on much. I do want 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to be able to vote. The time for that change is coming, and I will always vote to support 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds having the right to vote. I have debated this issue over many years with many MPs, and Members who are sceptical should look at the success of votes at 16 in Scotland. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon on polling day, we see young people from fifth year and sixth year leaving school, walking down the road and going en masse to the polling station. It is a sight to behold, and it is a positive step. Many Members—particularly Conservative Members— in Scotland who were sceptical have come round to the idea after seeing that it is a successful change. Of course I will support that.
Paul Farrelly
Has the hon. Lady considered the Liberal Democrats’ contribution to the present predicament? Their cannibalisation by the Conservatives in 2015—helped by their record in coalition, particularly on tuition fees—gave David Cameron the majority to get the referendum legislation through. Why on earth is she now making it worse by pushing for this early date? The uncertainty of the outcome of a general election certainly does not take no deal off the table.
Jo Swinson
While the Liberal Democrats were in coalition, there was not a referendum on our membership of the European Union. In fact, we passed a law to say that that should only happen when there was a significant treaty change. The loss of Liberal Democrats from the Government allowed that to be pushed through the House of Commons.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
The hon. Lady says that there was not a referendum under the coalition as a result of the Liberal Democrats. I was here in 2008, and she said in this Chamber, “We are being gagged. Only the Liberal Democrats will offer an in/out referendum.” The Liberal Democrats were actively campaigning for that. They were saying that the Conservatives were only offering a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, while they would give the public a say. Whatever happened in coalition, she has long been a campaigner for an in/out referendum.
Jo Swinson
We then voted to pass an Act of Parliament to say that that should happen at the point of significant treaty change, which we have not seen. I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She has a beautiful constituency, which I am already very familiar with, and I expect to be there more in the coming weeks.
As I was saying, the Prime Minister has not supported the United Kingdom. He has agreed to a border down the Irish sea, bluntly, because he does not care sufficiently enough. This is all about him; it is not even about what he thinks is right for the country. There are different views on the European Union across this House. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who was in his place earlier, has had a very consistent view on membership of the European Union. I have taken a different view, but most people in this House know where they stand on our membership of the EU. They do not have to write two different newspaper articles to decide which way to come down on that matter, and they would not make such a decision on the basis of what is more likely to get them elected as leader of their party.
The fact that the Prime Minister was prepared to make that call in his own interest, rather than in the national interest, proves he is not fit to be Prime Minister. This is a man who has been prepared to say anything and sell out anyone to become Prime Minister. No wonder people do not trust him. He said that he would get a great deal. What has he brought forward? It is an atrocious deal. It is bad for our NHS. We have already lost 5,000 nurses from the European Union 27 countries. It is a bad deal for our security. It is a bad deal for our economy—so bad that the Government have not even published an economic impact assessment. So much for a party that liked to say it was one of economic competence. Now it has even given up doing the analysis because it knows the results would be so bad. It is a bad deal for workers’ rights and environmental protections, which have been removed from the treaty and put into a declaration that is not worth the paper it is written on.
The Prime Minister also said that we would leave on 31 October, which is Thursday—Halloween—and we are not leaving on 31 October. I for one will be celebrating the fact that we are still a member of the EU, as will the 3 million citizens in a country from other EU countries and so millions and millions more. It shows that the Prime Minister says one thing and is not bothered about whether he delivers it.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
On the question of trust, has not the hon. Lady said that her party’s policy is to have a second referendum, but if the referendum comes up with the wrong result, she will ignore it, while if that does not happen and her party gets into a majority Government, she will just dispense with article 50 and ignore 17.4 million people? Why should anybody trust what she says, and why should anybody believe that she has any truck in being called a Liberal Democrat any more?
Jo Swinson
I really have to scotch this suggestion. I am not going to change my basic belief, and, to be honest, I do not think there are many in this House who would do so. Had we voted to remain in 2016, I would not have expected the hon. Member for Stone suddenly to think that being a member of the European Union was a good idea. Of course, I will always think it a good idea to be a member of the European Union, but what would be the case—
Jo Swinson
I have not finished answering the hon. Gentleman’s colleague.
If we had a people’s vote on the deal and there was a vote in favour, I would at least have confidence that there was a majority view in the country in favour of leaving under those specific circumstances. Right now, I have no confidence about that whatsoever. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned that it is the policy of the Liberal Democrats to go into a general election and say to people, “We are a party of remain. We believe that our best future is in the European Union. If you vote Liberal Democrat, we will do everything we can to stop Brexit. If you elect a majority Liberal Democrat Government, we will revoke article 50. If we are in that situation, as Prime Minister, I will revoke article 50 on day one.” That is setting out what we plan to do and, if we are elected and win the election, then doing it, which is exactly the essence of democracy.
Jo Swinson
I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s point. I am going to make some progress and let other people contribute to this debate.
We as a country face huge challenges. We have a mental health crisis, particularly among young people, that needs to be tackled. We have schools that urgently need investment to make them world-class centres of learning. We need to take bold action to tackle the climate emergency, because the scientists tell us that time is running out. However, we have huge opportunities and huge reasons be hopeful. We have people with huge innovation and ingenuity in our universities and our businesses, and there is a spirit of entrepreneurialism in our country. We are in the middle of a technological revolution that can help provide answers to the climate emergency, to the shared problems that we face and to improve our health and wellbeing for the future. When I speak to young people—whether they are in schools in my constituency, the climate strikers or the people on the marches about remaining in the EU—I hear their energy and enthusiasm, which should be an inspiration to us all.
As members of the European Union, working with our closest neighbours as a United Kingdom family of nations—strong together, working within the EU—we can reshape our economy, harness the technological revolution and build a brighter future. That is the message the Liberal Democrats will be taking to the country in this general election.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I think we have had a filibustering of democracy for much of the last year. We have had endless games and arcane procedures to prevent Brexit, and we are seeing the same games today to prevent a general election. I think this Parliament is really reaching new levels of absurdity. In the Leader of the Opposition, we have—perhaps for the first time in history—a man who can neither lead nor oppose. I still do not quite understand whether he is supporting an election today. We need an election or we need Brexit. The Labour party voted against the Brexit timetable motion, which means that we cannot proceed. Therefore, we have to go for plan B, which is an election.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
May I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is just wrong? On the morning of the vote on the first programme motion, the Labour side of the usual channels asked for a meeting, but it was refused by the Government. It is now up to the Government to lay down a new programme motion, but they have refused to do that. It is still within the powers of the Government to do it.
Mr Jones
No, it is worse than that. In the morning, the Labour Chief Whip asked through the usual channels whether he would be able to sit down to talk about a programme motion. It was the Government who refused to do that, and it is the Government who are refusing to bring back a programme motion. The idea that somehow this House is stopping debate on the withdrawal Bill is absolutely not true.
Mr Jones
We opposed the programme motion because a major constitutional Act would have been put in place that was going to be discussed within 48 hours? The Wild Animals in Circuses Bill got more than that on the Floor of the House. The Government could have come back and said, “Right, we’ll negotiate on a programme motion”. The usual channels on the Labour side were offering that, but it is up to the Government to do it. We have always said—this has been said by the Leader of the Opposition—that we would sit down to talk about a programme motion. It is the Government who have refused to do it, not the Opposition.
Mr Seely
I would like to just answer and then move on, if I may.
Every time we bring something to this House, the House tries to turn it into the political equivalent of a pushmi-pullyu. We tried to put a timetable motion through, and Labour Members voted against it, but now they want a timetable motion. You were offered three times—
Mr Seely
I am not giving way because I want to answer the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). It is really important, and I would like to continue to make my point. Three times we had a withdrawal agreement this summer, and three times it was voted against, but now we are told you want that withdrawal agreement again. Whatever the right hon. Gentleman votes against, a week later they say, “Oh, why didn’t we get that back again?”
Mr Kevan Jones
I ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question. If the Government are so proud of the withdrawal agreement they have drawn up, why do they refuse to let the House discuss it? The House proposed a programme motion that could actually move it on today. If anyone is stopping Brexit, it is the Government.
Paul Farrelly
I do not want an extended debate on this, but there is another good reason why the hon. Gentleman, despite his certainty, is absolutely wrong. The Government have no control of the timetable because they have lost their majority by expelling Conservative Members with long and proud service, losing people to defections and losing the support of the Democratic Unionist party. The reason is, therefore, that the Government have been badly and recklessly led.
Mrs Main
I want to give my hon. Friend a bit of a breather. I understand his frustration. Until the last incarnation of the withdrawal agreement, the Labour party—Her Majesty’s official Opposition—had set their face against a withdrawal Bill. Only five Members of Parliament—
Mrs Main
No. I am making an intervention on my hon. Friend. Eventually there was a consensus on the withdrawal agreement, so the next point of attack became how long we could discuss it. It is obvious to the country that there is a process that is coming to a conclusion. The conclusion should be that the withdrawal agreement is passed to give business and people certainty. Arguing about it will not get us anywhere.
Mr Seely
My hon. Friend is spot on. To answer the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), I think that the Prime Minister is acting in good faith. I personally have found him entirely reasonable in my dealings with him in the past couple of years. He was very supportive of a project that I helped to write earlier this year—he did not have to be.
The Prime Minister is trying to keep a promise that was made to the British people. In the Labour party manifesto, which Labour Members stood on, there was a promise to respect the referendum.
Mr Seely
No, please let me continue. I have not yet learned to say no—I need to do so. Nyet!
In the Labour party manifesto—I think on page 24 —Labour Members collectively promised to respect the referendum result. That was patently in bad faith because they have not yet done so. The Prime Minister, believe it or not, is trying to respect the referendum result that was given to him in the mandate of 2016. I am afraid to say that the Labour party is trying to do everything it can to avoid respecting the manifesto commitment in 2017. That is why my first sentence referred to filibustering democracy.
Dr Allin-Khan
I have respect for the hon. Gentleman. However, the Labour party did not stand on a manifesto to sell the British public down the river. Does he accept that perhaps our reason for not voting for the withdrawal agreement three times is that it was an utter load of rubbish?
Mr Seely
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. The question was not framed in pejorative terms: are you voting for Britain to be greater, Britain to be smaller, Britain to be richer, Britain to be poorer? The question was a simple one: do you want Britain to leave the European Union?
Mr Speaker
Order. I have great regard for the hon. Gentleman’s perspicacity, but not for his failure to adhere to parliamentary rules. The word “you” should not as a foreign body invade his speeches. “You” refers to the Chair. I have taken no stance on these matters.
Mr Seely
Roughly, yes. About 10 minutes ago, I was making the point that we needed a new Parliament, before I faced a host of helpful interventions from Labour Members. We need a new Parliament because we spend so much time talking about the same old thing; talking about Brexit endlessly, when there is so much else out there.
Mr Seely
Please let me make some progress. I will let the right hon. Gentleman intervene a little later.
We need a new Parliament because there are so many other things that we need to debate. I am interested in debating the rise of autocracies in the world. We have significant issues regarding Huawei.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend has just said that we need a new Parliament as if somehow a totally different electorate will be voting for people to represent them. Does he think that the people of our country made a mistake in 2017 with the Parliament they elected?
Mr Seely
No. My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not think the people made a mistake and one has to respect what they did. They read the Conservative and Labour manifestos and 80% of Members were elected on a pledge to respect the wishes of the people in the 2016 referendum.
Justine Greening
But my hon. Friend will also know that at the bottom of page 36 of the Conservative manifesto it was clear that the party’s intention was to leave the European Union with both a withdrawal agreement and a future partnership agreed by the end of the article 50 period. Surely he accepts that that is now not what is being proposed, so the current proposal does not deliver what the Conservative party manifesto set out at the last election.
Mr Seely
Again, my right hon. Friend makes a perceptive point. It is not from lack of trying. We have had two withdrawal Bills. We have almost got to the point of a “take your pick” withdrawal Bill. We had one this summer, which Labour Members relentlessly voted against. Now many of them wish that they had not done so, because, funnily enough, they like the new withdrawal Bill even less.
Vicky Ford
The Conservative party is, of course, the Conservative and Unionist party and I believe in equality across the Union. Many young people in my constituency might like the idea of votes at 16. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be unfair if 16-year-olds had them in Scotland and in Wales, but not in England, and that instead of raising such topics at the last minute time should be given to consider whether they are deliverable?
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I am sorry, but I do not buy the claim that we do not have time to deal with 16 and 17-year-olds voting. We have tabled amendments and spoken about the matter at every opportunity we have had in the House since 2015. On every occasion the Conservative Government have said that it is not the right time to do it. Why not just do it now?
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Is it not the case that the Labour party voted for Brexit—the one that was in our manifesto, rather than the Government’s version of Brexit? Labour has called for a customs union, but the Government have not offered that. Why should we support the Government’s deal, when it is not the promise we made to our own electorate?
Mr Seely
I suspect the answer to that is that I am sure the hon. Gentleman will enjoy telling his electorate why Brexit has not been passed. The hon. Gentleman believes that that is a competent answer. We look forward to seeing him back here. I clearly hope very much that I will be back here too, but I need to explain to my electorate why Opposition Members keep voting against Brexit and, thus far, keep voting against a general election.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman says that Labour Members are constantly voting against Brexit, but he should remember that for two years and eight months this House had no say on Brexit because it was an internal debate within the Conservative party. He says that the Labour party opposed the deals. If he reads the Labour party manifesto, he will see that I stood on a clear commitment to not support no deal, and that a customs union and close integration with our European allies was key. My colleagues and I have stuck to our manifesto, and the idea that we have spent three years discussing Brexit is just not true.
Mr Seely
I would say that we have arguably spent 25 years debating it, certainly in some parts of Britain. We then spent months before an election campaign and a couple of years afterwards debating it. The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that those of us on the Government Benches are not perfect and that there was argument within the Conservative party. Arguably, we spent too long trying to work out the sort of Brexit that we wanted. I accept that point. It would be churlish of me to say that we are perfect and that the right hon. Gentleman’s side is not, but there is a basic principle here which I am very happy to explain to the good folks on the Isle of Wight. It is this: we have tried repeatedly to push through a realistic and sensible Brexit deal. We tried three times this summer. We tried again with the Prime Minister’s very good withdrawal deal. Granted, I did not like some elements relating to Northern Ireland, but we have to move on and try to make the best of what we can. We have not got that, because it has not been supported by this House. We then said that we need to go back to the people, but that has not been supported by this House. That is why I said a few minutes ago that the right hon. Gentleman’s leader is the first Leader of the Opposition in history who has not led and not opposed. I want him to do that because we need to have a general election.
Mr Kevan Jones
It was the Prime Minister and members of the European Research Group who voted down the previous Prime Minister’s deal, so the idea that he is somehow blameless in the process of stopping Brexit is not the case at all.
Graham P. Jones
The hon. Gentleman says he will vote for any Brexit that comes forward. It has been seven or eight days now and the withdrawal agreement Bill has not been brought forward. I do not know why—it is rumoured that the Government are on strike and will not bring it back. In the Bill is an amendment for a customs union. He says he will vote for any sensible option to get it through. Why does he not encourage the Prime Minister to bring the Bill back, vote for a customs union and get Brexit done?
Mr Seely
For me, a customs union is not a realistic Brexit and it is not the kind of Brexit that was voted for. That is not the sort of Brexit that many Labour voters want to see either. The Labour party actually did quite well in my patch at the last election. It got 16,000 or 17,000 votes. Half of those votes were from people who wanted Brexit and I think they will be very disappointed by the behaviour of the hon. Gentleman’s leadership in not voting for Brexit. I do not think it is in the interests of his party either. We all want to move on, because there is so much else to do.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Ind)
Mr Speaker, I cannot work out whether you are eating popcorn as you watch this extraordinary spectacle of a great debate between two of our great parliamentarians play out across the Chamber.
Mr Vaizey
Does my hon. Friend not agree with me that this election provides a fantastic opportunity for each of the main parties to set out in principle what they want to see from Brexit, and to finally address the point that the public voted to leave the European Union but are leaving it to parliamentarians to decide the best way of delivering Brexit? It is therefore incumbent on both main parties to set out their Brexit proposals. We can at least unite in this fractious Chamber by agreeing that no deal is not an option and that those who voted to stop no deal are the real heroes of Parliament.
Mr Speaker
May I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is normally known in the trade as in-flight refuelling?
Mr Seely
I have just been refuelled, Mr Speaker.
We were talking about the need for a new Parliament. There are many things that I would like a Parliament to spend much more time talking about instead of being so focused on Brexit. The rise of autocracies is a very serious issue. On Huawei, do we allow the use in this country of high tech from a communist party state, especially if its stated aim is to dominate global 5G in the years to come? I am wary of making the world safe for autocracies and one-party states. We need time to debate that.
Another issue is the ongoing disaster of Syria and the clear mistakes made by President Trump. There is also the need for integration of overseas foreign policy. We also have an exciting domestic agenda and I want us to talk more about that.
Finally, I want an Isle of Wight deal so that our public services are of the same standard as those on the mainland, or the north island, as we call it. Most parts of the United Kingdom that are isolated by water—in other words, islands—either have a fixed link, which we are never going to have because it would cost £3 billion, or more money through increased public expenditure, but the Island has neither, and that has been a structural flaw for many years.
The best way to deal with all of those problems is for us to agree to an election and to listen to our constituents, the folks in the places that we care for and love—
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I begin with the revolutionary thought that if something was a bad idea yesterday, it might just be a bad idea today. I do not believe that the Prime Minister has been pushing for an election because it is impossible to get his deal through. After all, the proposal received its Second Reading last week. This is being done because the Prime Minister wants to avoid proper scrutiny of his proposals before he calls an election, and he has been desperate to run this election since the day he took office, no matter what he says about his reluctance.
There are two reasons that should give us pause for thought. First, depending on the outcome of an election, this does not take no deal off the table. The Prime Minister has made sure of that himself, through his own petulant decision to pull his withdrawal Bill before it could complete its parliamentary stages—before we could even begin the detailed scrutiny that a measure of this importance deserves. If no withdrawal Bill is being discussed before the poll takes place, no deal is still a possibility.
Moreover, we are only in the first phase of this negotiation. Not only is no deal a possibility in the first phase of withdrawal, but, as we know from the political declaration placed before us a week or so ago, it is also a distinct possibility in the second phase. In fact, it is more likely in the altered political declaration than it has been in the past. The possibility of a no-deal exit has not been removed. That is my first point.
Dr Caroline Johnson
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the only way to completely remove no deal from the table is either to revoke, which his party says it does not want at the moment, or to agree a deal, which his party blocks?
Mr McFadden
Those are not the only ways. There are three ways to avoid no deal: we can revoke, as the hon. Lady says, but that is not something we should do without the people having a say; we can agree a deal; or we can go back to the people. There is more than one possibility.
Mr McFadden
I would like to proceed.
Secondly, what is the right way to reach a resolution on an issue that has been so difficult for us and for the country? Surely the right way to reach a resolution on Brexit, and on the proposals before us, is to properly and fully consider them—not to have the pre-cooked, pre-prepared tantrums of the Prime Minister. The withdrawal agreement Bill is a hugely important piece of legislation—perhaps the most important that this House has considered for many years—and it deserved proper scrutiny.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is simply a dreadful deal, that the attack on workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer protections is simply appalling, and that we need time to discuss these important matters?
Mr McFadden
I do. There are many other points about this deal that we should properly explore, not least because for the first time, the proposal before us is to have two Brexits, not one—one Brexit for one part of the country and another Brexit for the rest of the United Kingdom.
There are those who will say, “You have been discussing all this for three years; you have had plenty of time,” but as others have said in this debate, much of that time was taken up by an internal negotiation within the Conservative party and the Cabinet, with multiple Cabinet resignations, and the specific proposals before us were published only a couple of weeks ago. They are different from the proposals in the past.
Tim Loughton
The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not vote for the agreement because it still allowed the possibility of no deal and because that possibility of no deal could happen after the agreement was passed, and following the subsequent negotiations about the nature of the deal. So on that basis, he could never vote for a deal. There is all this nonsense about how we need more time for scrutiny and how all these years were wasted, but he was never going to vote for a European withdrawal Bill. He pledged in his party’s manifesto to uphold Brexit, but he is not going to do that. The only way out of this, therefore, is to have this election, which is why he should vote for it.
Mr McFadden
I voted for a number of proposals that would have kept us close to the EU economically, including customs unions, single market arrangements and other proposals. It is not the case that I have opposed everything.
Mr Vaizey
Anyone on the Government Benches who voted against the withdrawal agreement proposed by the last Prime Minister cannot really complain if other people voted against different versions of Brexit, because they clearly subscribe to the principle that their interpretation of Brexit should guide their vote.
Mr McFadden
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very wise point. When hon. Members such as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) say, “You have blocked everything”, it is worth remembering that the people who were most vociferously opposed to the deal of the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), were Members from her party, some of whom now occupy Cabinet positions. That is important in the argument to come.
The proposals before us were published only a couple of weeks ago and they depart from the previous proposals in several important ways. First, as I said, they propose two different Brexits for different parts of the UK—one for Northern Ireland and the other for the rest of the UK. Secondly, they chart a course for the future that is much more divergent on some of the rights that hon. Members have mentioned than was the case previously.
Mr McFadden
I am going to wind up soon. In my view, the right way to have dealt with this issue is not to do what the Prime Minister has wanted to do since day one—to go for an election before these proposals could properly and fully be scrutinised by this House and the public—but to have proper scrutiny and debates and consider the amendments that would have been put forward. If we want to consult the public again on Brexit—as the Prime Minister said he wants to do time after time—and let them decide, why not consult them on the specific Brexit proposals of which he is now the champion? For those reasons, I do not think this is the only way to go.
Since the day he took office, it has been part of the Prime Minister’s plan to run a people versus Parliament campaign, despite having opposed several Brexit deals himself, and to blame everyone except the champions of this project for its not proceeding—to blame the European Commission, Parliament and sometimes the civil services and judges. But while this may have been part of his plan since day one, not all of us are willing to fold into it this evening.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
It is important that we have a general election. When the question about Brexit was asked in 2016, it was a matter of which side of the argument people supported. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who looks as if she is about to leave her seat, says she looks forward to being in my constituency more often. I say to her: thank you—we have had the magazine with your name all over it. The hon. Lady, who is now leaving the debate, is promoting herself in my constituency as the next Prime Minister, so it is important that we look at what is being heralded by parties such as the Liberal Democrats in the next election.
When we had that 2016 question, it was not a tribal question; the question for us on the doorstep was not: “Is yours a party of remain or leave?” We were empowered to campaign for whichever side of the argument suited us best, and we all pledged to respect the result, whether we knocked on the door and said “I’d prefer to leave” or “I’d prefer to remain”. I stood in the marketplace in St Albans behind a market stall manned by Conservatives, some supporting remain and some supporting leave, showing that our party respected the right of people to determine that question, not along party lines but having lived the European project for 40-odd years. Some, including me, had never had the opportunity to vote on the matter; others were being asked a second time.
As I said in an intervention on the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has now gone, along with all her colleagues—[Interruption.] Oh, sorry. I did not recognise the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) back there. He is a worthy stalwart, staying for the debate, which is not something the Liberal Democrats do very often. I am pleased he is here for my remarks.
As I said, the parties were free to campaign, and as I said to the hon. Lady, in 2008, for purposes of electoral expediency, seeing that David Cameron and the Conservatives—I was serving here at the time—were uncertain whether to offer a debate on the Lisbon treaty, which was being passed by the then Labour Government, the Liberal Democrats campaigned with a great big photograph of Nick Clegg all over a leaflet saying: “We are the party to offer a referendum.”
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
My hon. Friend articulately expresses how the EU referendum result was not based on what parties campaigned for. Does she agree that it was not a country-by-country or constituency-by-constituency vote, but that it came down to every individual vote by every citizen across the United Kingdom?
Mrs Main
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that we go back and look at how we got to where we are in order to understand where we are going next. I am sorry about the history lesson, but it was in 2008 that the campaign started gathering momentum, simply because the Liberal Democrats were saying, “Only we will give you the choice.” I do not remember then or any time in between, until now, when it seems politically expedient, that any party campaigned to revoke. All of us, on whichever side of the in/out binary argument we stood, were free to campaign, hence the divide and the fact that there are Members with firmly held views, either for remain or leave, on each side of the House. Now the House and the political groupings have turned it into a party political campaign, and that is the problem.
Paul Farrelly
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady’s attack on the Liberal Democrats. I did not vote for the referendum legislation, and I did not vote to trigger article 50, so I am certainly not going to vote for an early general election, which is opportunism from the Prime Minister and opportunism from the Liberal Democrats. However, the hon. Lady has a chance today to agree with the Liberal Democrats, because an amendment, if selected, could change the date to 9 December. If the Conservatives want an election as soon as possible, given the chronology—the 9th comes before the 12th—why are you sticking to the 12th?
Mrs Main
I assume that the word “you” was directed not at you, Mr Speaker, but at me, so I do not expect you to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question and tell us why you are not changing the date to the 9th, but I will answer it and say that I do not think the public will care one way or another. We have a tradition in this country of holding elections on Thursdays, but as for the guff and nonsense that we have heard in this place about people going to Christmas parties and school plays and all the rest of it, the public will think that that is a pretty trivial argument. I do not think it amounts to a hill of beans now: I think that the public are absolutely fed up.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not think it bizarre that some people are arguing for a people’s vote 2019 when we have not yet implemented the people’s vote 2016?
Mrs Main
My right hon. Friend tempts me, and since there are no time limits, I may well wax lyrical on that point. However, it is important for us to get to the nub of the matter, which is that we have moved this away from being a choice for the people. I knocked on doors, and people said, “I am for leave” or “I am for remain”—
Mrs Main
May I finish this point first? Otherwise I could be speaking for hours, and I am sure the House would rather I did not detain it for that long.
People came up to that market stall and said that they were for leave or for remain. I did not ask them, “Do you vote Liberal Democrat, do you vote Green, do you vote Labour?” Indeed, members of the Labour party have suggested that they agree with my views, while members of the Conservative party, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), probably disagreed with my views at the time. All of us, at the time—well, I believe that the Liberal Democrats said that they would respect the vote—gave the impression that it was a once-in-a-lifetime choice, and a once-in-a-lifetime decision on which we would not renege and which we would not revoke: it would be delivered. It then came to a Parliament whose members were subsequently elected on the basis of their own political tribes.
Graham P. Jones
Will the hon. Lady please explain to me why the Government have not got Brexit through when they have had a majority for three years?
Mrs Main
Perhaps the arithmetic in the hon. Gentleman’s particular tribe is not as good as it might be. The Conservatives have not had a working majority for three years; there have been difficulties. However, the hon. Gentleman has fallen into the trap of seeing Brexit as a “political tribe” decision.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Just about everyone in the Chamber said that they respected the result of the 2016 referendum and stood on manifestos in 2017 saying that they would honour that result. Why does my hon. Friend think they have backtracked and are retreating into their political tribes in respect of this very important issue?
Mrs Main
I can only hazard a guess that certain parties saw it as politically expedient to suggest or imply, in 2008 in the case of the Liberal Democrats or in 2017 in the case of the Conservatives and the Labour party, that they would indeed offer, or respect, a referendum. Now too many of the parties are finding it politically difficult.
This is not about us. It is not about individual parts of the United Kingdom and individual constituencies. That is not how the referendum campaign went. Nobody came and asked us questions on a constituency-by-constituency, country-by-country or region-by-region basis. We are in this mess now because we have turned the issue into a political football.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
Will the hon. Lady give way, on that point?
Ian Murray
On the subject of football, if the hon. Lady would like to buy my new book on football, she is very welcome—and I thank her for allowing me to plug it.
The hon. Lady talks about manifestos; I stood on that manifesto in 2017 and was the director of Scottish Labour for the single market and the customs union, which would have taken us out of the European Union, but, given that the Conservative party decided not to try to seek a consensus and instead turned to its own tribes with the Prime Minister pandering to the extreme right, that was no longer on the table and therefore I moved to a position that if it is not on the table the best deal is to put it back to the people and let them decide.
Mrs Main
On a scintilla of that argument I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. However, I am going to go back to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) about referendums, and the result the hon. Gentleman said he was not happy with is what he would now like to see not delivered in that particular way. His Front Bench, unfortunately, wishes to have the perverse situation of going back to the European Union, shredding the deal that has been agreed by 27 countries and that seems perfectly fit for purpose, if not perfect, and coming back with a better deal—because they are bound to offer the hon. Gentleman’s Front Bench a better deal!—in the full knowledge that the deal that would be better will then be campaigned against. It is a nonsense. To back—
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Main
I will give way in a moment; I am in great demand. First, however, I will respond to my right hon. Friend’s intervention on referendums. It is important that we recognise that people voted in that referendum who had never voted before. I spoke to people in St Albans—and I am sure that this experience was replicated across the House—and they had a fixed view; it was not a political view, but it was a fixed view on whether they wanted in or out. Some people wanted help in making their minds up, and some changed their mind, but they had a fixed view, and I had numerous people say to me, “Politicians are all the same,” but on this matter all the political parties came together to ask the same question.
Paul Farrelly
My area, Newcastle-under-Lyme, voted 60% to 40%, some say 62% to 38%, to leave. During the last election I was re-elected—some thought it was a surprise. When I was asked about Brexit on the doorstep, I said that, first, it was for this House to determine how, but I was quite honest with the constituents that I thought our future would be better if we remained, and that was my straight answer. In St Albans, where 62% of people voted to remain, what is the hon. Lady’s answer to her constituents?
Mrs Main
I am glad the hon. Gentleman asked me that because my answer to my constituents then, now and in the future is that I completely respect democracy, and whatever democratic outcome was delivered I would respect. I am not here to argue against it or for it; I am here to argue to deliver it. And I hope, since the political make-up of the hon. Gentleman’s seat is very like mine—I do not dispute that in any way whatsoever—that he will be arguing, as I do, that the British public, as we need to heal—
Mrs Main
No; I said no, and I say no twice. Mr Speaker made a ruling on this earlier on, so the answer is no.
What I will be arguing, as indeed we are arguing, is that we gave the in/out choice, regardless of political parties, and the in/out choice was delivered. Some people did not like it, and some constituencies did not match up with what their MP wanted, but that is not what it is about; what it is about—
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend very much for allowing me to intervene on her fantastic speech. She is making a number of points that I agree with extremely strongly. I voted remain in the original referendum, but my very strong feeling the day after the referendum, when we saw that overwhelming desire to leave the European Union, was that I should passionately support democracy in this country. Ever since that day I have supported that vote, even though I am a remainer, because I think we have one thing to do in this House, which is keep our promises to the electorate. Does my hon. Friend agree with that, and does she find that people who voted remain in her constituency share this desire to honour democracy above all else?
Mrs Main
I absolutely accept my hon. Friend’s point. I accept that there are people in my constituency, as there will be in others, who fervently wish to overturn the result and to back remain. However, most people I speak to, when asked, feel that revoking would be a step too far. Most of them say, “I just want it over and done with. I want a deal.” I believe that this Government have tried to deliver exactly that. The last Prime Minister tried to deliver exactly that. She, like my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), made it clear that she was a remainer, but like me she vowed to respect democracy. The fact that I am mismatched with my seat might be something that political opponents wish to capitalise on, but the fundamental question we need to ask ourselves is whether we value political self-interest more than the trust, the pledge and the contract that we all made when that referendum was called.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
Martin Whitfield
Honouring contracts: an excellent input. I should like to draw the hon. Lady slightly back towards the Bill that is before us today, which she no doubt fully supports—quite rightly, in her own mind. Does she agree that the accompanying notes to the Bill confirm that it deals with the franchise for the election and the date of the election, as discussed? The notes state:
“The Parliament of the United Kingdom and parliamentary elections, including the franchise and disqualifications for membership of that Parliament, are an excepted matter under paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.”
I ask this specifically with regard to the importance of the Bill, which is addressing a general election.
Mrs Main
Yes, we are discussing a Bill about having a general election. My point is that we need a general election because we have moved so far away from the original concept of the referendum, which was a choice between in and out, not a party political choice. Now, we are in a sclerotic position. We cannot move forward in here, and the only obvious answer is to ask the public to decide.
Mrs Main
Can I just answer the previous intervention before I take any more?
If it is somehow politically expedient for some people to vote tonight for an election, I would say that they are putting their own considerations before those of the country. This should not be about us. This should not be about us looking at poll ratings and saying, “Does it suit me and my campaign to go to the country now?” This should be about us remembering what we said in 2016 or—as I said in my intervention on the Liberal Democrats—remembering what we tempted the public with in 2008. I will stand corrected if I am wrong, but I do not believe that any party ever said, “We will offer you a referendum, but if we don’t like the result we will frustrate it and campaign against it to try to get a different one”, or worse, “We will ignore the result.”
I am waiting for the “Ooh!” and the jumping up and down from the Scot Nats when I say this, but I believe that they are hoping against hope that they can have a referendum and—hopefully, according to their agenda—deliver an independent Scotland. I hope that before this House grants any such independence referendum, they will have a full deal to put on the table, very much like they are saying we should do on the European Union. I hope that they would first have an answer on the fisheries policy, the euro, the border and all the other hard concerns they have about the Northern Ireland question. The reality is that a referendum is never formed in those terms. The previous one was not, and a future one would not be. The reality is that we asked the question: in or out? [Interruption.]
David Duguid
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s articulate flow once again. I could not help but hear the chuntering from a sedentary position on the SNP Benches. I believe that there were 617 pages in the White Paper on Scotland’s future that was published in advance of the 2014 independence referendum. On page 217 of that document, it clearly told the people of Scotland—[Interruption.] Page 217—do Members know where I am going with this? It told the people of Scotland that if they voted against independence, there was a risk of Scotland remaining in the UK and the UK then holding a referendum on EU membership, as that referendum had been announced by that time. Despite that warning, Scotland still voted to remain in the UK.
Mike Kane
On the sclerotic nature of this Parliament and whether a general election will somehow change that, will it ever? Brexit has been a virus in a vial in a nightstand by the Tory party bed for 40 years. Occasionally, it would break and infect the Conservative party, which would catch a cold, and maybe the Labour party would win an election. You unleashed a referendum and broke the vial across the whole country, and we have all caught the cold. Churchill said that fanatics were people who will not change their mind and could not change the subject. Brexit will not be solved by a general election.
Mrs Main
I do not blame you at all for unleashing a vial across anybody, Mr Speaker. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the point is that the people were asked. We cannot now say we should not have asked the question. Plenty of colleagues went around the country framing the arguments—plenty of colleagues framed the arguments for, and plenty of colleagues framed the argument against.
I come back to the point that the only reason we need a general election now is that the public have seen how we have behaved in here. The public have seen which party is the most likely to honour its pledges made to the British people in 2017, which party came out with a deal that this House found favour with, and which party remembers that we are only here to carry out the referendum, not to ignore it or to change it.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is also about ending uncertainty? Only with a general election and a Conservative victory can we show the path of certainty.
Mrs Main
I agree, but we also need to get on and discuss all the other issues. For example—this is not the most important thing for me, but it is important— St Albans has what claims to be the oldest public school in the world. It is right slap bang next to the cathedral. It is iconic. I have been in contact with parents—I am meeting another group on Friday—who are extremely concerned that the Labour party will remove the school’s charitable status if it is elected. They are extremely concerned that the Lib Dems will charge the school VAT. Businesses are extremely concerned that they do not have certainty about what to do next. People are pleased to hear about the £400 million investment in hospitals in St Albans and Hertfordshire, and they are extremely pleased that St Albans schools have received above-average cash injections. They want to hear about all these other topics. My hon. Friend is right that Brexit is drowning out the scrutiny of all these other things.
I want to remind the people in St Albans that the Labour Government left a little note when they left office saying that there was no money left. I want to remind St Albans that we now have the lowest number of unemployed young people since records began. I want to remind people in St Albans that there have been 500,000 new apprenticeships. I want to remind people in St Albans that we have lifted loads of people and families out of paying income tax at all, and that came from a Conservative Government. I want to be discussing those topics. The interminable vial of Brexit to which the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) referred is being kept active in here.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is dangerous to continue this “people versus Parliament” narrative, saying that Parliament is somehow frustrating the process. The reason we have not been able to coalesce around a deal is that the two deals that have been on the table have been terrible for this country. Diligence and integrity are required to ensure that we make the right decision. Has the hon. Lady read the impact assessment? If so, what does she make of the value of the trade deal to Northern Ireland? What does she make of the impact of this deal?
Mrs Main
I have, and the worst impact is the absolute uncertainty surrounding investment in our jobs and businesses. People do not know whether they can trade, whether they have to stockpile goods or what the arrangements will be because the dates keep moving. That is the worst thing.
All this flummery about Brexit is hiding the fact that we are not getting the business of this House done. Almost no one was here to talk about the Environment Bill, yet people are marching against plastic.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
To return to the Second Reading of this Bill, my hon. Friend faces a challenge from the Liberal Democrats in St Albans. Does she agree that, during the referendum, every household in the country received a letter saying
“The Government will implement what you decide”?
Does she remember the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats saying that, even if it were by one vote, the result should still stand? And did she hear the other day—
Mr Speaker
Order. I say very gently to the hon. Gentleman that there is a difference between a brief intervention and what one might call leisurely musing. I fear that what should be a brief intervention has elided, surely inadvertently, into leisurely musing and therefore his triple-hatted inquiry is, I feel sure, reaching its zenith.
Richard Graham
You are absolutely right, Mr Speaker. My inquiry was reaching its climax. I finish by asking my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) whether she also recalls the current leader of the Liberal Democrats saying that, if there were to be a people’s vote and the result were to go, in her view, the wrong way—in other words, if the people were to vote again to leave the European Union—she would not recognise it as valid. Is that not a most extraordinary position for any party of democrats to take?
Mr Speaker
It is always a pleasure to oblige the hon. Gentleman because his naughtiness is mitigated by his charm, but the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) should not be diverted from the path of virtuous debate by his intervention, no matter how sedulously he propagates his case.
Mrs Main
I take your instruction, Mr Speaker, and I will not be diverted.
A general election allows us to ask which party is prepared to honour democracy, and I will be asking that question every day in St Albans. A general election also reminds people that a strong Government is needed, and I mean a strong Government with a majority.
The current situation is the worst of all governance. It is governance by horse-trading. The Conservative party did not quite have the majority it needed at the 2010 election, so the Liberal Democrats came into power with us. [Interruption.] It worked so well, as someone says from a sedentary position. The horse-trading began straightaway. Horse-trading is exactly what happens in weak Governments. The lack of numbers means people suddenly start putting forward different agendas.
In St Albans, many students and young people were seduced by the thought of free tuition fees. I heard that being promised time and again across the land, and young people, potentially facing large debts being wiped away, suddenly found they might want to nail their colours to tuition fees at a general election. Tuition fees were an issue that attracted many young people for obvious reasons, and young people nailed their colours to that mast in largish numbers.
However, when we got into government with the Liberal Democrats, tuition fees were the first thing to be horse-traded. Tuition fees were horse-traded for a vote on the alternative vote system. The Liberal Democrats felt that changing the voting system was more important than tuition fees. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young people found themselves being duped and the horse-trading continued.
Mr Vaizey
I have enjoyed every second of my hon. Friend’s 29-minute speech, and I am grateful to get in just before the end of her remarks, because I know that she is going to give way soon to others who want to contribute to this debate. Given the seat she represents, I know that she agrees that one issue we will want to talk about in the election, apart from Brexit, is culture and heritage. That issue is close to my heart and hers, so in the last couple of minutes of her speech I would like her just to acknowledge that.
Mrs Main
The right hon. Gentleman tempts me, because the culture and heritage goes back to the Romans in St Albans and I could talk about it for a very long time. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I have a wonderful picture of the new St Albans museum, in the centre of my beautiful city; before he was Prime Minister, he came to St Albans and congratulated the Conservative-led council on delivering a fabulous museum, which is to the absolute enhancement of my constituency.
I will move on to the general election—[Interruption.] Is shouting down democracy something we agree with in this House? As far as I can see, this House says it wants more time to debate things, but when an hon. Member stands on her hind legs and starts debating things, they do not want her to have that amount of time—they want to run on to other Opposition groups or to other Members in the House. On something as important as this, the people need to know, even if it is Brenda of Bristol, why on earth we are troubling them yet again with another election.
Mr Speaker
No, she is taking an intervention from none other than the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone)
Jamie Stone
Mr Speaker, I rise as the unrecognised Liberal Democrat in this place and I apologise to the Chamber. Let me get back to the issue of the election itself. I represent the coldest and most northerly constituency in the British mainland. It is going to get dark a hell of a lot earlier where I come from than it does in St Albans, and the streets and roads are going to be an awful lot icier. This is perhaps an appeal for the Leader of the House, who is not with us at this precise moment, but may I ask the Government to co-ordinate as closely as possible with the Scottish Government to make sure that the streets and roads are safe for the people who want to come out to exercise their democratic right?
Mrs Main
I am not sure how that related to Brenda of Bristol, but the point I wish to make, before I start concluding my remarks, is that in 2017 the public were sick of the idea of having an election but they turned out and they mostly elected the two biggest parties, on a mandate to deliver. This House, for whatever reasons it wishes to conclude, has been letting the public down. The binary choice of in or out has been turned into a political football. Now the parties need to draft their manifestos. They need to firm up their pledges and be honest about what they wish to do. They need to tell the public that if a party is elected with a strong mandate, the horse-trading will stop, the deals will stop and the taking over of the agenda by the Opposition or other individual groups with their own little axe to grind will stop. The parties need to say that a Government will be able to deliver on all the additional funding pledged in the Queen’s Speech and on Brexit, and that the next Government, unless they are a Government who are asked to oppose Brexit, will be delivering on the pledge to deliver to the people.
I hope that today there will be a vote for a general election, and not for political expediency. All of us should be saying sorry to the public for putting them through it again. We should be saying sorry for the dark streets, the cold nights, and the cancelled Christmas decorations or whatever else was going on in halls that are now going to be having election proceedings. All of us need to apologise to the public and say, “Sorry, when you told us to leave, we weren’t actually sure you meant it.”
I believe the public meant it. I know that other Members wish to speak today, including the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who was not here for the whole debate—
Mrs Main
He has risen to right. hon—I am so sorry and I apologise. He wishes to speak. When we are going out on the doorstep, we should remember that that person who voted in or out did not vote Conservative, Green, Labour or Liberal—they voted in or out. We need to respect that. We gave them a choice. It is insulting the public to say that we should not have given them the choice, as someone on the Opposition Benches has said, that they were too stupid to make the choice, as some have said, or that some of them are dead now and so we will ask people again. So may I make the plea that tonight we go for a general election, even though it or the timing may not suit all of us? What it should do is resolve this issue of a zombie Parliament incapable of action and deliver a Conservative Government who will deliver on their promise, their mandate and their pledge to uphold democracy.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
I wonder why on earth we need a four-hour debate, because we have a very simple choice: we either want to vote for a general election or we do not. I voted for a general election last night and I will vote for one tonight. Let us be truthful: I do not think anybody in the House, listening here or in their rooms or wherever they are listening, will change their mind one iota on how they are going to vote because of this four-hour debate. Some Members are probably using the debate more as an election address. I do not have to do that, because I am not standing again, but I want to say why I will support a general election in the vote tonight.
Let us not forget that the public have been looking into Parliament a great deal more in these last few months than ever before. What they have seen is a Parliament that does not and cannot allow the Government to govern. The Government do not have a majority. The Government have not been able to get their withdrawal deal through; they have not been able to get much else through. Without doubt, there are Members who will never vote for any withdrawal agreement whatsoever, no matter how wonderful it is, because they do not want to leave the European Union, and the reality is that people out there know that. They know that we now have a Parliament that is a bit of a shambles.
Anyone who goes out and talks the public, whatever their views and however they voted in the referendum, will know that they think this Parliament is a bit of a shambles. They are seeing that even today. A simple vote on whether we have a general election is now being turned into a debate, with very little time, on whether we want 16 and 17-year-olds to be added to the electoral register and whether we want to give European Union citizens the right to vote. Even if I supported those proposals 100%, this is not the time to be changing who is on the voting register; in reality, it is pretty difficult for that to happen before a general election on 9 December or 12 December.
Kate Hoey
A lot of people who have seen how Parliament works over the past few months will have seen that wrecking amendments, delaying amendments and procrastination are now part and parcel of how we work in this Chamber. That is why we are here now talking about a general election.
The last general election we had, in 2017, was entirely unnecessary. Many people know that it was ridiculous to have a general election and the public punished the party that called the general election, when it had a majority and there was no need for a general election. The situation is very different now, because the Government cannot govern and the public deserve the right to have a Government, of whatever party, who can get their business through the House and who can get some general sanity into what we are doing in our procedures.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. As she and I both serve on Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, she will be well aware that the essential legislation to compensate the victims in Northern Ireland of appalling historical institutional abuse began its progress through Westminster in the other place. If we were to dissolve on 6 November, she knows perfectly well that those victims of historical institutional abuse who have waited so patiently and with such dignity for so long will not be able to see that legislation pass through this House in time for them to have that compensation. How does she feel about supporting an early election and, in so doing, doing down the victims of historical institutional abuse?
Kate Hoey
I do think that that is a hugely important issue, which has unity across this House. If the Leader of the House, who has just left his place, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland really wanted to get that Bill through, they could do so this week. It could still be put through this week. It passed its Second Reading in the other place last night, so there is absolutely no reason why we cannot get that Bill through. Yes, the hon. Lady is right. There will be many things that we cannot get through, but there are also an awful lot of things that we should be getting through but we are not able to do so because there is no majority for them in this House.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thought that I heard the Leader of the House say that one reason for keeping the House going until 6 November was to get that Bill through. It would be iniquitous if we do not get this Bill through, because people in Northern Ireland really require to have it passed.
Kate Hoey
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that those whose business it is can sort out what we do over the next few days. As I understand it—I am sure that other people know more than I do on this—if there is not a general election until 12 December, we will not have to dissolve until the following Thursday, which means that there is time. If there is unity in the House about that very important measure then it could be put through.
I know, too, Mr Speaker, that you have made your decision about leaving this House. I see no reason why the election of a new Speaker could not have been brought forward to this week, so that the issue could have been resolved before Parliament dissolves. I am getting away from the Bill, and I know, Mr Speaker, that you would not want me to do that.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Under the previous Labour Government when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, was not the question of giving voting rights to overseas citizens living here raised and looked at by Lord Goldsmith, who concluded that full voting rights should be given only to UK citizens?
Kate Hoey
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to make a contribution in Committee, when we will know more about the detail of that amendment, but I certainly will not support it. I do not support it, and I certainly do not support, as I have said earlier, either of those changes being introduced in this Bill at this time. What this legislation is about is whether we want a general election.
In my view, every political party and every candidate standing in the election will have to be very clear about their position on what will happen about our leaving the EU and honouring the result of the referendum. Members have mentioned a people’s vote. I waited 40 years after we joined the Common Market to get another referendum. We have not implemented this referendum, so I am very pleased that there does not seem to be a majority in this House for another referendum. None the less, it is absolutely clear that we just cannot go on like this in our Parliament. We must resolve this issue. I hope that when the parties put forward their manifestos, they will be very clear that this withdrawal agreement can still be looked at and changed.
I hope that they will see that the terrible part of this deal, which to me really stands out, is the way that Northern Ireland has been treated. We cannot allow that to happen. I know that there are lots of talks going on about how this can be changed. I believe that we should be leaving as a whole United Kingdom, not leaving Northern Ireland different and separate. That can be solved and it needs to be solved if we are finally to get an agreement through this House.
It is important that the public see that we have finally said that we accept that there is not a majority for anything really happening in this House over leaving the EU. I blame those Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who decided very early on that they would do what they could to prevent us from leaving. They have been very successful, but I do not think they will be as successful when it comes to the general election.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
The question before us today is: do we want a general election? Do the public want a general election and do the politicians want a general election? I do not think that anybody wants a general election. If we have an election in December, it will be the third time in three years that my electorate have been asked for their vote, and I hope that they give the same answer this time. But what people do want is Brexit to be delivered.
My constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham voted overwhelmingly to leave. The country as a whole voted to leave, but even the constituents I meet who voted remain—including business owners and people who run businesses—also want Brexit done. They tell me, “Look, we really wanted to stay and to start with we thought another vote might be a good idea, but now what we see is that the ongoing uncertainty—this kicking the can down the road all the time—is more damaging to our business than any form of Brexit, and we want you to get it done and respect democracy.” So why has it not been done?
There has been much talk of whether we are representatives or delegates, and whether the 450 MPs who represent constituencies that voted to leave should also want to leave. We are representatives, and as such we can choose whether to follow the majority of our constituents. I have followed the majority of mine in supporting Brexit, because that is what they voted for. In this case we have a very unusual situation, whereby we representative politicians gave the choice to the British people. We delegated the responsibility for this one decision to them, asking them, “What do you want us to do? This is such a momentous decision that we want you to make it for us.” They said that they wanted to leave, and it is up to us as representatives to deliver Brexit on their behalf. But we have now a perfect storm, whereby the representatives do not agree with the delegated decision of the British people, and the Government lack a parliamentary majority with which to deliver their will. Under this Prime Minister, the Government have tried every single avenue open to us to deliver Brexit.
Mr Kevan Jones
What the hon. Lady is saying is not exactly true, is it? It took her party two years and eight months to put anything to this House. The Government now have a Bill that has passed its Second Reading and could actually go forward, so it is not the case that an election is somehow going to deliver Brexit. The architect of stalling the Brexit process was the present Prime Minister, when he voted against the former Prime Minister’s original withdrawal deal.
Dr Johnson
The point I was trying to make is that the Government have tried every avenue to deliver Brexit, but this Parliament and this Opposition have done everything they can to stop it.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The argument that the proper thing to have done was to extend the time available is undermined by the fact that the greatest enthusiasts for that voted in principle against the Bill. By “scrutiny” they merely mean amending the Bill so that it no longer represents the agreement and the negotiations have to be restarted and the whole wretched cycle can begin again.
Dr Johnson
My right hon. Friend is exactly right.
The Prime Minister was told that he could not reopen the withdrawal agreement, but he did. He was then told that he could not remove the backstop from that agreement and could not gain other important changes, but he did. He was then told that he could not get a deal that, in principle, was voted for and supported by this House, and on Second Reading he did. But then the Opposition voted to prevent it from being discussed, because it cannot be discussed without a timetabling motion, and they voted against that.
Dr Johnson
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already.
This is a question of trust. The British people trust us to deliver on our promises, and if we do not deliver on our promises we undermine the basis of democracy. The leaflet that came out during the European referendum said: “We will implement what you decide.” Many people, some of whom had never voted for the whole of their lives because they felt it did not make anything change, went and voted in the European referendum because they thought it would make a difference. It was the biggest democratic exercise in our country’s history and a majority voted to leave—and leave we must.
The Opposition are playing party politics, because their only determination is to try to make sure that Brexit cannot happen by the 31st. That is because they think the public are stupid. They think the public will say, “Ah—the Prime Minister did not deliver Brexit by the 31st, so we can go to the country and say that he did not keep his promise.” But actually the public are not stupid. They can see that the reason we have not delivered it by the 31st is that the Opposition voted to institute the European Union (Withdrawal) No. 2 Bill, which surrendered control of when we leave to the European Union.
I want to deal with the issues in the amendments. The first amendment would allow all EU voters living in this country to vote. Quite apart from the fact that this has not been properly debated, it is very difficult to add 3 million voters to the register at very short notice. It would also have—
Mr Speaker
Order. I just say very gently to the hon. Lady that a copy of prospective amendments has been made available, but the time for debate upon amendments is at the Committee stage for which they are intended. Therefore, briefly to animadvert to a possible amendment is orderly, but to dilate upon it is not.
Dr Johnson
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for that guidance. I did notice that many other speakers mentioned the amendments during their orations.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am not sure whether that was done in an arch way. It was advertised, and it has attracted the attention of the Clerk at the Table and of the Chair, but in any case I know that the hon. Lady will unfailingly sign up to the nostrum that two wrongs do not make a right.
Dr Johnson
Absolutely, Mr Speaker
I would like to discuss the issue of European citizens, which has already been mentioned during the debate. It would be very difficult to add 3 million voters to the electoral register at short notice, and the relative size of constituencies would be affected. It is notable that some, like my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), who was here earlier, have constituencies of more than 100,000 people, while others have constituencies of just 20,000 people. I know that there has been an effort by the Boundary Commission to introduce changes that would even those up, but suddenly adding European voters would have an impact on the relative value of an individual’s vote. It is also notable that none of the EU27 member states allows citizens not from their country to vote in a general election, and with free movement and elections at different times one can rather see why that might be.
Other speakers have discussed votes at 16. As a paediatrician, I have over time seen and treated a number of young people at 16. I have met some very, very mature 16-year-olds with great life experience who no doubt have the knowledge and maturity to vote, but I have also met 16-year-olds who do not. It is worth looking at the international—
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
I put forward a private Member’s Bill to try to extend the franchise. Does the hon. Lady not agree that if we start to put up arbitrary barriers and set tests for 16 and 17-year-olds, we should set the same tests for other age groups? If she set a maturity test for 16-year-olds, I can bet her that the Prime Minister would not pass it.
Dr Johnson
I am reminded of the fact that when people start to get personal towards the Prime Minister or others, it is because they do not have a political argument to make.
It is useful to look at international norms. The United Nations, which we are part of, sees 18-year-olds as adults. Internationally, refugees are seen as children if they are less than 18 years old. We are part of the Five Eyes group, along with Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada, all of which allow votes only from 18. All EU member states, apart from Austria, allow votes only from 18. As a children’s doctor—
Mr Speaker
Order. I ask the hon. Lady to resume her seat. Either entirely of her own initiative—which is perfectly credible, because she is a most assiduous parliamentarian—or because she has been exhorted by others, or maybe a judicious combination of the two, she seems inclined to do precisely what I told her she should not do, which is to dilate on matters that, as things stand, are outwith the scope of the Bill. I cannot in all conscience encourage her to persist with her global tour, and potentially her intergalactic tour, in pursuit of evidence that she wishes to adduce on the matter of the appropriate age at which people should vote. What I have tried to tell her courteously, and which I now tell her courteously but bluntly, is that those matters are not currently up for discussion. It will not suffice for her to smile at me and say, “Mr Speaker, I am most grateful for your guidance,” with a view then to comprehensively ignoring it.
Dr Johnson
Thank you, Mr Speaker; I appreciate your guidance on this matter. I hope you will not mind my responding to the comments made by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who said that our children should have a vote because it matters to their future. This will affect my four, eight and 12-year-olds’ futures even more, but that is not a rational argument for them to vote.
I am concerned that the amendments that have been tabled are wrecking amendments, because they are trying to change the franchise just before an election. Were that to happen against the Electoral Commission’s advice, we would not be able to have an election in December.
Sir Greg Knight
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. I think she is saying that the Bill should be left as it is not only on Second Reading but beyond it, to maximise support for it.
Dr Johnson
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; he is right.
We need to deliver Brexit and get on with the priorities of the British people. People in my constituency want more police, more money for schools, better broadband and a strong economy—all the things that were promised in the Queen’s Speech. This Parliament needs to be honest with the people. If Members do not want to deliver Brexit, they should be honest about that and say to voters that they do not want to deliver Brexit, then see whether they are returned. We are at an impasse where the only solution to get Brexit done, whether we want one or not, is to have a general election now.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady. May I politely suggest that colleagues have care and concern for each other? Each of them wishes to speak. It is not necessary or desirable for one person to speak at inordinate length and then say, either openly or to themselves, “Whoops! Sorry. I stopped someone else doing so.” It is better to avoid that grisly fate.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I agree. I plan to say a number of things, but I want to follow up on some of the things that have been said during the debate. There has been a huge amount of talk about being honest with the public, political expediency and turning the referendum into a party political thing. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) seemed very concerned that the referendum and how we vote on Bills has been used for political expediency. I would like to gently remind everybody of the time that the Prime Minister got a camera crew to come and take a picture of him as he signed his little resignation letter to Theresa May—sorry, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Some might say that it had been politically expedient and, lo and behold, he is now the Prime Minister. Gosh forbid that anybody should use things for political expediency or that Conservative Members have always voted for the Bill.
The trouble with the arguments we are having is that the Government have continued to behave like a Government who have a majority, regardless of the fact that they do not. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead suffered exactly the same problem after the referendum, which was not won decisively by one side—it was a marginal win—and after the 2017 election, when again the country was split, and the idea of bringing forward a Bill that we could all sit down and work on was literally never ever taken forward.
I have listened to Conservative Members saying today, “Well, you shouldn’t be allowed to amend the Bill”, or “You only want time to amend it”. Er, yes—that is absolutely right, because that is the job of this House. Different people come here from different backgrounds and make laws that are not just for one sort of person, but that represent this country. I seem to be in a twilight zone where the Government and the Executive seem to think that they just write a line and then go, “Er, well, it’s my way or the highway”. Welcome to parliamentary democracy!
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is even worse than that because Parliament was excluded from this process for two years and eight months while the Conservative party had an internal debate about what type of Brexit they could get through, and it was only then that this House was let in to the arguments?
Jess Phillips
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is ridiculous.
I represent a leave seat, and, as we enter this general election, I may face the fate for my beliefs that the hon. Member for St Albans fears that she will face—and that is okay. She thinks it is okay, and I think it is okay that I may have done something different from what the majority of my constituents did, regardless of the fact that 10,000 extra of them voted for me post the referendum.
The reality is that the Government have only ever wanted obedience. They have looked on people like me and said, “Do as we say, little girl. We’re not going to let you do anything to our precious Bill.” But that is not the meaning of this place. What nobody in this place can answer is how will it end if what is returned is another hung Parliament. We did not think we were going to be here before, yet here we are. I believe the right hon. Member for Maidenhead thought that she would be having a considerably nicer time when she was next to Lord Buckethead on the evening of the general election, yet here we are.
What has happened since then is like a Rorschach test. The hon. Member for St Albans can look at the exact same result as the one I can look at, and we can say, “In this piece of toast, I can see the Virgin Mary”. We say that the voters think exactly what we think, regardless of what they actually said, because the question is fudged. We did not do so when we asked them in a general election, and we are not going to get a decisive answer on the issue of Brexit.
I spoke to the Prime Minister in the Lobby the other day. He was loitering around outside the private Members’ Bills ballot, which I invited him to enter as it seems he would struggle to change the law otherwise. He asked, “What will it take for you, Jess, to support this Bill?” Am I allowed to say my own name? Is that allowed? He asked, “What will it take for you, the honourable— the incredibly honourable—Member for Birmingham, Yardley?” I said, “What it will take for me is that you ask the people where I live if they are happy with the deal”. It is as simple as that. He looked at me as if this was brand new information—“This is the first time I’ve heard such a revelation”—which I thought was odd, but, you know, he is an unusual man.
Then the Prime Minister said to me, “Don’t you think another referendum will be dangerous for this country?” To that, I said, “I’m not entirely sure why you think it would be any different from a general election”. We are all sitting in here talking about this general election, but pretty much no one has actually talked about general elections, apart from a few party political broadcasts about people’s museums in their constituencies and how beautiful the islands are. The reality is that we have all talked about the referendum. This is going to be a Brexit referendum whether we like it or not, except that we will not be being clear and we will not be being honest—none of us will be—and in what we get back we will be able to see whatever we want to see.
I have heard people in here say that I as a Labour voter voted to deliver Brexit based on the last general election, and that is simply not true. I did not do that. As a Labour voter, I voted for many, many things that I believe in about Labour values. My vote had nothing to do with the Brexit position of my political party and I would say the same if I was not a representative of it. We are going to dishonestly use a general election. It will not be about the fact that people in my constituency cannot send their kids to school five days a week, or about whether the NHS is serving them properly, or about whether they are happy with something that the Conservative party might say. We are going to use the general election for political expediency. Can we all stop pretending that it is about anything else?
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for making a passionate and amusing speech. I believe that she is making the argument for a further referendum. How long would it take this place to legislate for that and how long has the EU given us in the current extension?
Jess Phillips
The honest answer—I have truck with honesty—is that I am not entirely sure, but does the hon. Lady understand that we tried to get the biggest piece of legislation through this House in three days? I am certain that the wit of the people in this Chamber could organise a referendum, even to be on the same day as a general election.
I do not particularly like the idea of a general election in December for all the reasons people have mentioned. The main thing I do not like is exactly what I have said: it will be used by people afterwards to say that it meant what they wanted it to mean. That applies not just to the Government side, but to the Opposition. No one can answer the question of what happens when we return a hung Parliament to this place and we are stuck once again in Brexit paralysis. What will we do then? No one is answering that question because everybody is acting completely arrogantly and doing that thing we all do on the stump when we say, “Here’s the next Prime Minister” even if we are in a minority party with about four people in it. It is totally ridiculous. It does not answer the question of what we do if we return a hung Parliament that, just like in 2017, is split exactly down the middle and we cannot get anything through.
Jess Phillips
I do not speak for the Labour Front Bench or those who make policy, but the Act seems to have caused paralysis. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing ideal about the situations that any of us have found ourselves in since 2016. None of this is ideal. Frankly, it needed people who could put most things aside and try to do what was best, and I am afraid that this House has largely failed in that endeavour to try to find consensus.
And so we face the future. After the next general election, will we all agree to try to build a consensus, if it returns a hung Parliament with no clear line? Will we all put that in our manifestos? I do not know the answer to that. “Make it end” could just carry on in perpetuity. Nobody wants that.
I want to build consensus. A man was arrested and charged for trying to break into my office, calling me a fascist because I would not vote for the deal. I asked for him to be shown leniency in court, and I asked for us to be able to sit down and talk to each other because I do not believe that I cannot find something in common with this man who is the same age as me and grew up streets away from me. I believe we can find consensus, but I am not sure a general election campaign is where we will find it.
I can guarantee to all hon. Members that an onslaught of money will come from who knows where to fund propaganda in our election: when our electoral laws in this country are currently not fit for purpose; when we are about to enter into a battle where foreign funding can flood into our system; where the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who led a campaign that has been found to have broken the law, is going to be in charge of some of that propaganda machine; and when the Prime Minister himself refuses to answer direct questions on exactly his role in the decision-making and when he found out.
In the recent European Parliament election, a man stood on a platform, completely legitimately, when the thing that made him most famous was whether he would or would not rape me. Our electoral laws are not fit for purpose. So what are we all going to do—all of us sitting here pretending that what we want is honesty and that we do not just want to win? What are we all going to do during the election campaign to make sure it is fair, to make sure it is legal and to make sure that it is not trying to say from the other side that people like me are a danger to the country or from my side that people like you are, so that people who hear that turn up and try to break into my office, scream in face and send me death threats? What are we going to do? It might be much easier for everybody to get a one-line Bill through, but a one-line Bill on an election does not answer a single one of the questions that every single person in this place has been asking for a very long time.
I shall finish my remarks by saying that I will gladly go back and sleep in my own bed for a solid six weeks, see my children every day and join the camaraderie of the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who will join me in my seat as they do every time we have an election, but what happens next is the question that nobody can answer. Until that is the case, the one-line Bill is useless.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Ind)
I am grateful to have been called when I was not able to be present for the whole debate. I will try to keep my remarks brief, because I know that other colleagues want to speak.
It is an example of the journey I have made in my 14 years in this House that my maiden speech was a Eurosceptic speech that followed a speech by a Labour Eurosceptic, the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). I will now make a resolutely pro-remain, pro-European speech following the excellent speech by one of the Members whom I most admire in this House, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips).
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just very gently say, because the right hon. Gentleman implied that he would be brief—I hope, mercifully, that he will be brief, brilliant though he is—that there is no need for him to make either a pro-European or an anti-European speech, or a speech anywhere between the two? There is a need for him to make a speech about whether there should or should not be an early general election, nothing more. It will be delivered with an eloquence worthy of Demosthenes and an intellect to rival Einstein’s, I feel certain.
Mr Vaizey
I have to say, Mr Speaker, that the minute you rose I realised the error I had made in speaking injudiciously and inaccurately. From now on, I will take a forensic approach. The point I was going to make was that I support the call for an election. It is quite right that we try to break the deadlock that exists in Parliament by having an election as soon as possible. I am also mindful—I have listened to every word you have said in this Chamber, Mr Speaker—that I am not going to speak about any of the amendments. All I will say is that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley raised important points and the amendments, if they are called, will also raise important points.
There are important debates to be had in this Chamber about the shape and form of elections. I am open to the idea, for example, of 16-year-olds voting. I am open to the idea of our European friends who live here and contribute their taxes voting. In particular, I take on board the point the hon. Lady made about money and lies. We know that in a digital age the propaganda pumped out on tech platforms will be a huge issue in this election and in future elections. When this House returns after the election, I hope that that will be one of the issues that is addressed.
Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who made an excellent speech, have focused on the fact that people in the country are yearning for us to talk about something other than Brexit and about the issues that matter to them. I am extremely fortunate to represent the wonderful constituency of Wantage and Didcot, which contributes an enormous amount to the British economy. It is a centre for scientific research, space companies and life sciences, and it has a Formula 1 team, Williams Formula 1. Understandably, the constituency voted to remain because those companies rely on the expertise of a workforce who are spread throughout Europe and who are able to come to this country to work. It is clear, therefore, that when we have this election—and we must have it—Brexit and the issues that emerge from it will be an important factor in the debate.
It is also right that when we call this election—I am speaking in support of the Bill—people should have the chance to debate issues such as who provides the best stewardship of the economy, healthcare and education as well as the importance of culture and the creative industries in our society, a subject very close to my heart.
I echo what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said—I hope this is in order, Mr Speaker—about the tone of any forthcoming general election campaign. You will be pleased to know that the insight I am about to deliver represents the conclusion of my remarks. When you quite rightly ruled me out of order for saying that I was going to make a pro-remain speech when in fact I am making a pro-election speech, the point I wanted to make was that, with a little bit of Brexit inside me—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans has perked up. Obviously, I do not want to be part of a European superstate. I often say to my remain friends that if at any point the European Union told us, “You can stay in the European Union only if you join the single currency,” I would be the first to man the barricades and call for Brexit—even, dare I say it, a no-deal Brexit.
What was left behind after the referendum, and what I hope we get back if we call an election, is an understanding of the role of this incredible institution of Parliament. We know that the people voted to leave the European Union, but the paranoid hard-right Brexiteers decided that any version of Brexit apart from their own would somehow snatch away their hard-won victory. However, you know, Mr Speaker, that the role of this place, as the Chamber of a representative democracy, is to take that instruction and to interpret it as best we can.
My rebellious streak emerged when a hard-line Brexit was proposed—the proposal to leave the customs union and the single market while maintaining an open border in Ireland is an impossible circle to square—and there were attacks on our judges, who were called “enemies of the people” for interpreting the law; attacks on business, which pays taxes and employs people; attacks on our civil servants, who worked day and night to deliver the instructions of their political masters; and, dare I say it, Mr Speaker, attacks on you for allowing us in this Chamber to have our say on important matters. What really drove me mad was the attempt by some people in this House to own the result of the referendum and say, to echo the words of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, “My way or the highway,” trashing in the process every single institution that they purported to be campaigning for when they campaigned for Brexit. That is utterly shameful. I hope they realise that everyone in this House has done their best to deliver on the referendum result.
It is not our fault that there was a hung Parliament. We can blame various people for the reason that we came back with a hung Parliament—[Interruption.] No, I blame the politicians. I blame the person who was leading our party at the last election when we could have come back with a majority, and this party can perhaps reflect on how long it took to react. Nobody knows how this election will turn out. I have simply taken a consistent position—as I have watched the carnage and the wreckage, and the ratcheting up of the rhetoric to “traitor” and “treason”—and said, “We should respect the referendum result, but we should leave with a deal.”
I do not know whether you and I will ever meet again in our respective positions, Mr Speaker. I simply want to say to you, as one man of average height—to echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois)—but of substantial girth: thank you for everything that you have done to stand up for the rights of this Chamber. Thank you as well to all my colleagues, who I look forward to seeing on the election beat, reasonably exchanging sensible and intelligent views on the best way forward—
Sir Robert Syms
It will be a small intervention, Mr Speaker. I do not wholly agree with my right hon. Friend, but this place would be poorer if he were not a Member of a future Parliament. I hope that he gets the Whip back and we can hear more brilliant speeches about science and all the other things that he has championed in this place.
Mr Speaker
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s very kind and gracious remarks, and I will not forget them.
I am afraid that to accommodate the remaining colleagues who are on the list, I will have to introduce a three-minute time limit with immediate effect—[Interruption.] Otherwise, people will not get in—I cannot help it, but there is injury time, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) knows.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I will not be supporting a general election because I do not think that a general election will resolve Brexit. The clue is partly in the name: a “general” election is about general issues. It is impossible to extrapolate from the result what people think about a very specific issue—in this case, Brexit. If we want a specific answer on Brexit, we have to ask a specific question, and the best way of doing that is through a people’s vote. That is even more the case with an electoral system that is as undemocratic and antiquated as ours, because first past the post regularly delivers majority Governments on a minority of votes.
A million people did not march through the streets of London a few weeks ago demanding a general election; they wanted a people’s vote because they know that that is the best way—indeed, the only way—to get to the bottom of this crisis and resolve it. All that a general election will do, frankly, is put Nigel Farage and the Prime Minister back in their comfort zones, giving them a stage—political insiders dressed up as rebels, whose agenda, frankly, is chaos—so that division will thrive.
I want to take on the idea that this Parliament has run its course. The Prime Minister has won votes on both his Queen’s Speech and the Second Reading of the withdrawal agreement Bill. The only person who is blocking progress in this Parliament is the Prime Minister. The reason for that is very clear: he has an agenda that is all about a general election—about installing an even harder Vote Leave contingent of MPs in Parliament—but let us not allow him to get away with telling us as Parliament that somehow we have not been doing a good job of holding him to account. This is not a zombie Parliament; it is a Parliament that has got its head around parliamentary procedures in a way that any new Parliament will take months to do. It is precisely because we have been able to keep the Prime Minister in his box that he is not very happy with the fact that we are trying to continue on our way forward.
One of the reasons I do not want a general election right now is that the thing that should be front and centre of it—the climate emergency, which is what we should be debating in a general election—will be overshadowed by yet more fights about Brexit, which it will not resolve. We know that the next 18 months will be crucial in terms of whether we have a chance of getting off the collision course we are on with the climate catastrophe. The Committee on Climate Change said in its report to Parliament a few months ago that the next Parliament will be absolutely vital, so it is crucial that the next general election is about the climate crisis. This existential crisis is facing all of us and if we fritter the time away with more debates about Brexit, which they are not even going to resolve, we will be responsible for the greatest irresponsibility—that does not quite make sense, but you know what I mean. We will be responsible for the greatest betrayal of young people and their futures, because this is a massive wasted opportunity, and I cannot bear the fact that we are going to spend it talking about Brexit in a way that is not going to resolve it.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
As I made clear earlier, there are issues relating to the franchise, conduct and security of any election that take place, but we do not have time to go into all those, so I will concentrate on the issue I have tabled two amendments on: votes at 16.
Votes at 16 could be done in a variety of ways without impediment, and I await the selection of amendments for the Committee stage. In my view, at the very least, 16 and 17-year-olds, and 18-year-olds who are obviously already on the register, should be able to vote. This step has been taken in Wales and Scotland. In my view, those who have the greatest stake in the future of our country—our young people—should be able to vote in this important general election, as they should in referendums, local elections and other such matters. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friends the Members for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Hove (Peter Kyle), who have pursued this issue strongly in the past.
Stephen Doughty
I know, but I am conscious of other colleagues.
I pay tribute to all the organisations, particularly Members of the Youth Parliament, who have been making their voices heard and urging us to support the proposal and who want us to be able to debate this crucial amendment. Members of the Youth Parliament visited me in my own constituency a couple of weeks ago and reflected to me the issues that young people want discussed in this election. It is not just about Brexit, which I have spoken about many times—I am clear it will leave our country worse off, less safe and more unstable and I will continue to oppose it and to campaign for a people’s vote; it is about all the other issues that young people in my constituency come to talk to me about, including mental health, climate change, public services, opportunities for young people, tackling antisocial behaviour, violence and knife crime, and all the other issues. Our 16 and 17-year-olds care just as much about the future of our country as all the rest of my constituents do, and I will continue to stand up for them and all my constituents, young and old, in any election, but we need to be clear that that younger generation must have the vote in this general election.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My constituents and constituents across Scotland will have their say in a general election on the shambles they have seen unfolding over this Brexit farce. Scotland voted against Brexit—62%. Every single council area did so, but this Government and this Parliament ignored the Scottish Government’s compromise and ignored the Scottish Parliament, where every single party except the Tories voted to avoid this situation. The SNP wants to stop Brexit. We want to see the Prime Minister’s rotten deal go by the wayside.
More than that, since 2012, my constituency has been enduring the scandal of the universal credit roll-out to full service, which has brought misery to my constituents. The city used to have just one food bank; now there is one in every quarter of the city, thanks to the misery universal credit is causing. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) has raised the issue of the rape clause in universal credit. I have urged three Prime Ministers now to listen to the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Marie Curie, Macmillan, patients, doctors and clinicians, to get rid of the six-month rule in universal credit for the terminally ill and to allow implicit consent, yet it has been ignored at every single stage. They all deserve their say on the Government’s failings. What have the Government got to fear from votes at 16? What do they have to fear from 16-year-olds? They are about to inherit the farce that this place is laying down for them. EU nationals are also vital. In the highlands, they are vital for care, the NHS, tourism, hospitality and farming. These are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, and they should have the vote, as should 16 and 17-year-olds. Scotland does not want a Tory Government, and it especially does not want this Tory Government, who have failed my constituency and are failing Scotland. It cannot afford to be ignored any more.
A mandate exists for a referendum on independence for Scotland. We need to be in a position to give all our people in Scotland hope for the future and a choice between Boris island—this broken spectacle of Westminster little Britain under Brexit—and an independent Scotland taking its own seat at the heart of Europe.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I do not think that I will take my three minutes, Mr Speaker.
I do not fear an election, because I know the people in Motherwell and Wishaw well. I have been talking to them over the last few months, and the spirit of those people says that they are looking for independence. They want out of this cracked and broken Union. They want rid of this reckless Tory Government. They want the feckless Labour Opposition to stand up and fight against Tory austerity, Tory Brexit and the Tory mess that they have turned Scotland and the UK into over the last umpteen years.
Let us have an election. Let us find out what Scotland really wants. I know, but the rest of the UK should know. Scotland wants and needs independence, and independence soon.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
A Government under siege from its own side, ignoring the advice of its more thoughtful friends and fearful of a mythical force of ultra-patriots, prepared to do irreparable damage to the UK’s international relations by charging ahead with a reckless and ill-considered Brexit, is now desperate for an election to turn its huge opinion poll lead into a parliamentary majority.
So much for the May Government and the election of 2017. That Government impaled itself upon its own hubris—and who thought that history would repeat itself so quickly? The thinking of this Government has appeared to be, “We will burn that bridge when we come to it”, and the blame has always been someone else’s. A Prime Minister who bemoans his lack of control of Parliament while disposing of great chunks of his parliamentary party, and who struggles to win any vote in the Chamber, betrays a lack of leadership, a lack of control and a lack of statecraft. His premiership is defined now, and no election can save it. This is a make-do-and-mend, hand-me-down Government that will limp forlornly from here to its end and pass unlamented into history. The only question left is how much damage it will do as it dies.
An election now may not, of course, solve anything for the UK. It may return another deadlocked Parliament. There may be a small majority for one party or another, but there may well still be a deadlock in this strange malaise that has so paralysed the English body politic. You lot have no escape, sadly for the people whom you represent, but Scotland has. This election will demonstrate how the nations of the UK are diverging, and how Scotland is charting a different path. A nation that regards the EU as being generally a force for good, a nation that sees other nations as possible allies rather than probable enemies, a nation that looks outwards instead of up its own fundament, Scotland sits more and more uncomfortably with this place.
This election, when it comes, will lay the foundation for the independence that will follow. Scotland will walk a different path, and we will forge a different future. I pity the people of England who are so poorly served by their politicians, but England’s people have overthrown broken systems in the past, and they can do so again. They can cast down the petty tribunes who have sat here for so long squabbling over trifles. This should be the last election to a UK Parliament: Scotland will be independent before another is due. We will have no need to die in a ditch; we will just get independence done without the buffoonery. No one can arrest the progress of a nation or shout down its ambition. This is the sunderance of the UK and the end of the song, and an auld song once ended in Scotland will start again.
Brexit has been the downfall of two Tory Prime Ministers and the decency of the Tory party, it has ripped apart the Labour party, and it has destroyed whatever credibility this Parliament once had.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am in favour of a general election: a general election on 7 May, when the sun is shining, when 16-year-olds are included, and when we can get over Brexit by having a referendum—a referendum on the deal. The Brexiteers have been arguing for three years about what the deal should be, and now that we have a deal, we should put it to the people. Why are we not putting it to the people? Because the Prime Minister knows that people will not agree with it. There is a majority in the country in favour of remain, but he knows that he may get a majority of MPs, or a small minority of MPs if the remain vote splits. That is not democracy and, with his Brexit, and any Brexit, we will be poorer, weaker, more divided and isolated.
I very much regret that we are hurtling in this direction, thanks to the Liberal Democrats giving up the public vote and to the SNP; basically there is an unstoppable momentum towards an election. We will probably have an election now. The Labour party will be talking about a better Britain, a fairer Britain, a greener Britain, addressing climate change and not just Brexit, fundamentally giving that vote back to the people, so we are the party of democracy. The Tories will give Brexit at any cost. The Liberals will basically say “Remain, whatever you think.” We will provide democracy, a better Britain and the fourth Prime Minister in four years with Jeremy Corbyn.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
This Government are in complete disarray. After yesterday’s vote, we now have a Prime Minister who has suffered 10 embarrassing defeats in this House and two historic court rulings against him. He has shown his utter incompetence as Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister came to office promising to deliver Brexit by 31 October, accompanied with the usual sensationalist language about dying in a ditch that we have come to expect from him. It has been clear for some time that this was never a realistic proposition. Sadly, rather than accepting the reality, fronting up and admitting to making an irresponsible pledge, he chose simply to break his promise, costing the taxpayer over £100 million in advertising, not to mention the production and destruction of 10,000 commemorative 50p coins in the process—things are literally in meltdown.
To this day, the Prime Minister continues to try to deflect the blame for breaking his word on to anyone he can think of. I would call it the politics of the schoolyard but frankly at Parkview School we were better behaved than this, and I believe the vast majority of our children and young people would behave more honourably in similar circumstances.
It is clear that a general election is needed because this Government have lost the trust of our country, because we know the damage a no-deal Brexit will do to jobs and industries all across this country, and we cannot trust the Prime Minister to be true to his word. We have consistently said that we will support a general election once no deal is absolutely off the table, and when the date for the election can be fixed in law. We have now reached that point.
Cat Smith
I will not give way; time is very limited.
The purpose of a general election is to let the people decide the future of our country. It therefore must be conducted in a way that is accessible to as many people as possible. We will therefore be supporting amendments that achieve this.
Students should not be disenfranchised by an election date which will not allow them to vote at their term-time address. This is the address where they live for the majority of the year and where they rightly should be able to vote. That is why our preference is for an election on 9 December.
But we can do better than this. Let us seize this historic opportunity to extend the franchise to some of those most likely to be affected by the outcomes of the general election: 16 and 17-year-olds and EU nationals, who we already give votes to for all other elections anyway. We are now in the inconsistent and unsustainable position where 16 and 17-year-olds living in Wales and Scotland can vote in local elections, but their English and Northern Irish counterparts cannot. It is also fundamentally wrong that many millions of EU citizens who live in this country, have their families in this country and contribute to our country and are deeply affected by the developments in this Parliament are currently denied a vote in Westminster elections, and in the most important general election for a generation. We have accepted the argument that they are affected by the decisions taken at local government elections, which is why we give them the vote in those elections, and there is no sensible reason why they should be denied this right in general elections.
The next general election will be a defining moment for our country, as we have suffered almost a decade of relentless Tory cuts that have pushed our public services into crisis: the NHS is in crisis, local schools are starved of funding and adult social care is on its knees. We need change.
Labour will put forward the most radical, hopeful, people-focused programme in modern times: a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and transform our country. We will put control of Brexit back in the hands of the people, with a real choice between a sensible leave deal or remain. Labour is the only party that can and will let the people decide on Brexit. We will tackle the climate emergency with a green new deal, bringing net zero emissions targets forward and providing renewable industries with the investment and support they need, including banning fracking in the UK once and for all. It is time for change. Labour will end austerity and build an economy that works for all, with a real living wage, proper collective bargaining and four new bank holidays. I look forward to making these positive arguments to the country in the weeks ahead.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Oliver Dowden)
I should like to begin by paying tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate and spoken with genuine sincerity and passion. There have been some excellent contributions, and a wide range of issues have been raised. Particularly, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). All those contributions made the same point: people want to get Brexit done. They want to move on, and the only way we can do that is to ensure that we have a general election mandate to ensure that that happens. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—sadly, he is not in his place—who gave a heartfelt and excellent speech paying tribute to this House.
I hope hon. Members appreciate that there will be further opportunities for discussion during the course of the Bill, particularly in the Committee stage that follows, so if they will forgive me, I will not go into detail on some of the points that I think will be addressed at that stage. What we really are facing today is the simplest possible Bill. It is a straightforward piece of legislation to allow a general election on 12 December so that we can elect a new Parliament, gets Brexit done and allow this country to finally move on. Let me be clear: the Government would rather be getting on with a smooth and orderly Brexit now.
Lady Hermon
I presume that as part of the Prime Minister’s general election campaign, he will make a grand tour of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, so could the Minister just explain what the Prime Minister will say to the Unionist community there and how he will reassure them that their future is safe in his hands? I can assure the Minister that, at the present time, there are many in the Unionist community who do not feel confident that their future is safe in the Prime Minister’s hands.
Oliver Dowden
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do not know exactly where the Prime Minister will go on his election tour, but I am sure he will go to Northern Ireland. He will take the message to Northern Ireland that the deal that he has negotiated will allow the entire United Kingdom to leave the customs union as one and that that deal we based on a mechanism of consent.
The challenge that we have in getting such a deal through this House is that whenever Parliament has had the opportunity to get Brexit done, it has not taken it, even though 80% of us in this House stood on a mandate to honour the referendum result. Let us look at the record. Parliament voted to extend and delay in March, and to extend and delay in April. Through the Benn Act, Parliament forced the Prime Minister to extend beyond 31 October. Most recently, it voted against a timetable that would have allowed us to leave in an orderly manner, on time on 31 October, as we have promised. So I really fear that if Parliament has the choice of another delay or an extension beyond 31 January, it will surely once again take the opportunity to delay and to extend. The risk that we face is that, as we tick through to 2020, we once again find ourselves back in this Chamber discussing Brexit more and more, and that is completely contrary to what the public want. The public want us to get on with it and get Brexit done.
Jess Phillips
I wonder whether the Minister can tell me how we will stop the paralysis if what is returned to the House is exactly what we have now.
Oliver Dowden
I heard the hon. Lady make that point repeatedly throughout the debate. The very simple answer is that the people should vote Conservative and vote for a party that will get the deal through and ensure that we finally leave the European Union, as people want us to do.
Oliver Dowden
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Lady’s point.
Thanks to the Prime Minister’s efforts, we have a deal that we will be putting to the British people at the general election, and we will then seek to deliver the deal through the House on the back of a stable and sustainable parliamentary majority that will finally allow us to leave the European Union, as most of us have promised to achieve.
Jim McMahon
Now that the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has had its Second Reading, we should be using this time to take it to the next stage instead of calling an election.
Oliver Dowden
The problem with the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman is that when we had the opportunity to get Brexit done and to get it done by 31 October, he and Opposition Members chose to vote against the programme motion that would have enabled that. The challenge facing us is that every time this House has had the opportunity to deliver on Brexit, it instead chooses further delay.
The deal that the Prime Minister has reached has confounded critics in this House and elsewhere. People said that we would never be able to reopen the withdrawal agreement, but we reopened it. He has nailed the naysayers who said that the EU would never let go of the Northern Ireland backstop by getting rid of the backstop. When people said that we could not ensure that the whole United Kingdom could leave as a single customs territory, he refused to accept it. This Government have made sure that the UK can leave the customs union as one entire United Kingdom that is free to chart its own course.
The Government’s position for some time has been that if Parliament cannot back the Prime Minister’s deal, we must surely have a general election. Up until today, however, that has not been the position of the Labour party. We have had the extraordinary spectacle of a Leader of the Opposition who spends every day castigating the Government’s failures—indeed, his party busily puts out leaflets demanding a general election—but when that golden moment arrives finally to have that general election, what happens? The Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly spurned it. I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition has finally faced up to the inevitable, ensuring that we will make some progress with this Bill. I am confident that we can make that progress, and that we can get on and have that general election.
When the general election happens, we will have two contrasting visions for 2020. The choice in front of the British people is clear. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has a deal that ensures that we deliver on the promises we made in the 2017 manifesto. We can finally deliver on Brexit and get the job done. Once we have got the job done, we can finally turn to the priorities that matter to the British people. The great one nation agenda being advanced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will allow us to deliver for our hospitals and for our schools.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Many excellent speeches species were curtailed at three minutes this evening. Why is this awful, repetitious performance being allowed to go on for so long?
Mr Speaker
The Minister has two and a half minutes in which to develop his peroration, but the hon. Gentleman has registered his disapproval.
Oliver Dowden
Thank you for that opportunity, Mr Speaker, but I think I will be able to do so in slightly shorter order, so I hope that I can bring pleasure to the hon. Gentleman.
In the election, we will deliver on a one nation agenda: delivering for our schools and our hospitals, safer communities, more police, massive investment in our infrastructure, keeping our streets safe and tackling the cost of living. The alternative will be the nightmare advanced by the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to make 2020 the year of two referendums: one on Brexit and another on Scottish independence—more energy-sapping, mind-numbing stagnation and more pointless delay, so I urge right hon. and hon. Members to back this Bill and back the general election. Let the Government get Brexit done and allow the country to move on.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).
Mr Speaker
Under the Order of the House of today, we shall now—for which I may have to substitute “shortly”—move to a Committee of the whole House.
I say this as much for the benefit of people outside the elected Chamber as for anybody else. I have collected the voices, as the Speaker is required to do, and it is clear that there is an overwhelming majority in support of Second Reading. From Second Reading, we proceed to Committee. When the House sits in Committee, the Speaker does not occupy the Chair. That responsibility is taken by A. N. Other, who will be wending his or her way to the Chamber as I speak. I say with some confidence that another Chair will arrive ere long to take up his or her important duties.
Mr Speaker
I am deeply grateful to the hon. Lady, who may be indulged at slightly greater length than would otherwise be the case.
Alison McGovern
This has been a fractious, challenging, controversial and difficult debate at times. Do you agree, Mr Speaker, that in the context of this debate, it is extraordinarily important that all Members agree that their behaviour, whether in this House or in the potential general election to come, should be exemplary, whatever others do?
Mr Speaker
I agree. On the matter of exemplary behaviour, we can all learn from the hon. Lady. I know she did not seek that tribute, but I proffer it gratis in any case, because it has the advantage of being justified.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Tuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:45 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 295 / Noes: 315 - Question accordingly negatived.
20:05 - The House divided: - Ayes: 438 / Noes: 20 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 2, page 1, line 2, leave out “12” and insert “9”.
This amendment would change the date of the proposed general election to Monday 9 December.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 14.
Clause stand part.
Clause 2 stand part.
Amendment 3, title, line 1, leave out “12” and insert “9”.
This is a consequential amendment.
Cat Smith
The Prime Minister came to office promising to deliver Brexit by 31 October, and he has failed. He has shown his utter incompetence, and he simply cannot be trusted. We have consistently said that we will support a general election once a no deal is absolutely off the table and when a date can be fixed in law. After lengthy denial by the Prime Minister, we have now reached that point, which is why the time is right for a Labour Government and real change.
The purpose of any general election is to allow the largest possible number of people to participate and have their say on the future of the country. Up to 9.5 million people in Great Britain are not correctly registered to vote. Young people are less likely to be registered, with almost a third of people aged 18 to 34 missing from the electoral roll. This means their views and interests are being under-represented.
The Government know they are less likely to do well in elections when lots of people are registered to vote, which is why they have done nothing to tackle this issue. The Prime Minister even tried to fix the date of the general election to make it harder for students to take part. Students must not be disfranchised by an election date that will not allow them to vote at their term-time address—the address at which they live for the majority of the year, and at which they rightly should be able to vote. Labour’s amendment to fix the date of the general election for 9 December is the best possible way of ensuring the next election is accessible.
We can do better than that, which is why we would have supported, had they been selected, the amendments to expand the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds and to EU citizens with settled status. We recognise their contributions to our society, and they should have a right to vote on their future as well.
Whatever date the House decides the election will be held on, the Labour party is ready to get rid of this Tory Government, who have pushed our public services into crisis. We are ready to put forward our vision for a different kind of country: a country where people get the care they need, from a properly funded NHS; a country where everyone, regardless of their family background, gets the education they need to do well in life; a country where regions that have been held back get the investment they need and a chance to rebuild after a decade of neglect; a country where homelessness is a thing of the past, and everyone can access safe and affordable housing; and a country that is led by a Prime Minister that puts the control of Brexit back in the hands of people in a new referendum, with a real choice between a leave deal and remain.
Labour is the only party that can, and will, let the people decide on Brexit. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to rebuild and transform our country, which is why I urge this House to support this amendment, to ensure that this election is as accessible as possible.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Oliver Dowden)
It is a pleasure to speak in Committee on this crucial Bill. As I said in my closing remarks on Second Reading, this is a short, sensible Bill, setting out the date of the next general election. The Bill provides transparency on the date of an election and ensures that it can be conducted in a timely way so that Parliament can meet in good time ahead of the 31 January deadline.
Clause 1 provides for a parliamentary general election to be held on 12 December 2019. I will shortly set out why that is the preferred date and why the Government will resist the Opposition amendment.
Clause 2 deals with the Bill’s short title and provides that the Bill will come
“into force on the day it is passed.”
I wish briefly to touch on the subsections in clause 1, to provide reassurance to Members; these are minor, technical points. Subsection (3)(a) removes the requirement for Ministers to review the welfare cap in the current Parliament. Subsection 3(b) ensures that the reporting requirement placed on Ministers does not need to be completed in this Parliament. Both measures ensure that these requirements will align with the new parliamentary Session, following the election.
On the principal amendment standing in the name of the Opposition, we have considered the date of the poll and I wish to set out why 12 December is the best date, for two reasons. First, it gives Parliament enough time to progress essential business—specifically, the Northern Ireland Budget Bill, which is necessary to access the funding that the Northern Ireland civil service needs after 31 October. If that Bill does not receive Royal Assent, the delivery of public services and proper governance in Northern Ireland would be put at risk.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
But would that issue not be resolved by a sitting this Friday?
Oliver Dowden
It would be helpful for this House to consider that Bill in good order, as it is an important measure to ensure that nurses, teachers and police officers in Northern Ireland get paid. If we do not pass that legislation, there is a real danger that such people will not get paid. I urge hon. Members to think carefully about moving the date. The issue at hand is whether to move the date to 9 December, which would preclude our passing that Bill.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Did my hon. Friend note that the Opposition spokesperson’s principal reason for opting for 9 December and not 12 December was that they felt that students would somehow miss out? Students are perfectly able to apply for a postal vote or a proxy vote, and three days will make absolutely no difference to that process.
Oliver Dowden
Yes, my hon. Friend and neighbour, who represents St Albans, raises an important point: there is no substance to the point about students being disfranchised. That is because, first, 70% of students choose to vote at their home address, so this would not apply to them; and, secondly, because all the 40 largest universities will be sitting on 12 December. So I do not believe there is any danger of disfranchising.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
I remember the leader of the Scottish National party saying last Thursday that we could not have an election on 12 December because it would be cold, dark and wet. Has my hon. Friend been in touch with the Met Office to find out how much warmer and how much lighter it will be three days earlier on 9 December?
Oliver Dowden
I stand ready to be corrected, but I did look that up. I believe that having the election three days earlier would allow one whole minute of extra daylight.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It does not matter in the Humber if it is 9 or 12 December—I can guarantee it will be a bit windy and probably a bit damp. More importantly, will the Minister dismiss the Opposition’s amendment for what it is—a shameful attempt to divide? That is what it is about. The Opposition are trying to build resentment in a group of the electorate that they think are susceptible to their message. It is disgraceful and shameful to try to separate students from the rest of the population, when everyone knows that people can vote by post and by proxy in every election. The Opposition will divide, divide, divide throughout the election campaign, because that is what they do.
Oliver Dowden
As ever, my hon. Friend is entirely correct. There will be no impact on the enfranchisement of students. All students will have the opportunity to vote. Most vote at home. Most universities will still be sitting.
Several hon. Members rose—
Oliver Dowden
If hon. Members will allow me to elucidate on this point, it may satisfy them. The other reason to have an election on 12 December is that it is a Thursday. By convention, Thursday is the day on which we have such elections in this country. There does not seem to be a strong argument to the contrary to move it those few days earlier.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
I point out to the Minister that there is no convention to have elections every two years, but we seem to be content to do that.
I want to take the Minister back to his important points on the Northern Ireland Budget Bill. We all want to see people get paid—we do not want a Republican-style shutdown of government in Northern Ireland—so will he answer the question I asked? Could we not resolve this dispute by sitting this Friday?
Oliver Dowden
I again make three points to the hon. Gentleman. First, Thursday is the usual date for such an election. Why change it? I have yet to hear an argument advanced to change it—the hon. Gentleman is essentially making a case to change it from Thursday to Monday. Secondly, we need to have time properly to consider the Northern Ireland Budget Bill. Thirdly, if hon. Members wish to move the election to the earlier date, they need to come up with a compelling reason to do so, other than daylight, which I have yet to hear.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We cannot have everybody on their feet at the same time. It is for the Minister to give way.
Oliver Dowden
I will make some progress and then I will consider giving way.
There are principled reasons why we wish to have proper scrutiny of legislation for the Northern Ireland budget. It is essential for teachers, doctors and nurses in Northern Ireland to be paid.
There is a convention that elections are held on Thursday. Once again, the Opposition are trying to move the goalposts. Initially, the argument was that they did not want a general election on 12 December because they were concerned that the Government would somehow seek to ram through the Bill giving effect to the Prime Minister’s deal. Yesterday, at the Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister give an assurance on that. Now, they seek to contrive another reason artificially to create divisions in this House over moving the date by three days.
We have had three years to consider this matter. Will three days really make that much difference? That is in tune with a wider point. The public are getting more and more frustrated at this House endlessly coming up with procedural reasons that prevent us from getting on and doing the thing we want to do, as set out in this Bill—to have a general election to allow us to resolve the issue. We will resist the Opposition amendment to move the date of the general election.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is just a technical question. If the general election is on 12 December, when will the new Parliament sit and when will we have a Queen’s Speech? When this was last done in 1923-24, with the general election on 6 December, the Queen’s Speech was not until 15 January, which would make it difficult to get any serious business done by the end of January.
Oliver Dowden
I hope I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. The reason the Government wish to have a general election is to ensure that we have a sustainable majority to pass the Bill that implements the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement. Therefore, the impetus on us is to get that done as quickly as possible. I do not think that he will find delays from those of us on the Government Benches.
Neil Gray
I thank the Minister for giving way. I think that it is clear that the contentious area in this part of the discussion is about whether the election is on 9 or 12 December. No. 10 had previously suggested that it is willing to pull the Bill if the amendments regarding EU nationals and 16 and 17-year-old are selected and passed, so my question to the Minister is this: are the Government willing to die in a ditch over whether the election is on 9 or 12 December? What is their intention if this amendment passes?
Oliver Dowden
I believe that I have set out two sensible and compelling reasons to have the date on 12 December, and I have yet to hear to the contrary an argument about why we need to move it by three days. I really think that we have dealt with this point. I know other hon. Members wish to speak, so if the Committee will forgive me I will conclude my points on amendment 14, which stands in my name.
The Government’s amendment removes St Andrew’s day 2019 only from the operation of regulation 29(4) and 8(3) of the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations. This both restricts the change to this election only and leaves the subsequent register intact. The effect of the amendment is to remove the bank holiday from the calculation of time for registering for the voter deadline. It would instead be classed as a normal working day, but for this election only. We feel that the amendment, as we have drafted it, will, I hope, address SNP concerns, but will limit any unintended consequences of amending the relevant provision of the regulations.
In summary, we are trying to achieve straightforward, simple legislation that ensures that we can have a general election in short order. I urge all hon. Members to resist the temptation to complicate and amend this to allow us to have the general election on 12 December so that we can get a sustainable majority to deliver the Prime Minister’s deal and finally move on.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
I want to make some comments generally on the Bill as a whole and then to discuss the individual amendments that have been selected.
I must start by saying that, clearly, it is not ideal for anyone to have an election a couple of weeks before Christmas: the nights are fair drawing in, it will be cold and dark, and many of the people in this country will, quite understandably, be looking forward to Christmas and spending time with their family and relatives. So it is hardly an ideal time, but from our perspective in the SNP, we think that this is a necessary requirement now, because we have reached a situation of impasse in this Parliament where it is incapable of resolving probably the biggest political issue that has divided the United Kingdom in my lifetime. There are competing views as to what the end point of the Brexit process should be, and parliamentary democracy in this country, it seems to me, has now reached a point of stasis where it is incapable of adjudicating between those outcomes. It is therefore right and proper that we should go back to the electorate and allow them to reflect on what can happen.
This will very much be the Brexit election. I am pleased that we have moved the Government from their position a few weeks ago, when they did not actually want a Brexit election in which the people would be allowed to cast their views about different outcomes. They wanted to get Brexit done and go to the electorate afterwards. That would have been a travesty because it would have said to the people, “We’re going to have a general election. Brexit will be one of the big topics of conversation, but there is really no point in you expressing a view, because we’re going to conclude the matter before the first ballot is cast.” That would have been a ridiculous and anti-democratic situation. I am glad that we have moved the Prime Minister and the Government away from that approach, even if it does mean that the Prime Minister might be looking for a ditch on Thursday.
Many people have lamented the fact that Parliament has not resolved this matter, three and a half years on. In my view, that is simply because it is without any reasonable resolution. The promise of Brexit has turned out to be a lie. In 2016, people were told that they could vote to leave the European Union and would be better off as a result. That is not true, and hardly anyone in this Chamber would now argue that it was. In fact, it is a matter of how bad the different Brexit options are. That is why, quite understandably, there is now a large body of opinion in this country for whom the conclusion of this process should be to say, “That’s it. It has gone far enough. Stop it now; we want to get off.” An election will allow that view to come to the fore.
The election will also allow the Prime Minister to put his deal before the electorate. And hon. Members should be under no illusions—the Prime Minister has taken an extremely flawed deal by his predecessor and made it immeasurably worse. This series of proposals that the Prime Minister has agreed with the European Union will impoverish people in this country, very much remove the standing of the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world and leave it a much worse place. I do not want that for the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and I certainly do not want that outcome for the people of Scotland. That is why it is right and proper that the Prime Minister should put his case before the electorate. I look forward to him being challenged—not just by Opposition parties, but by Nigel Farage so that we can see whether the deal he has come up with satisfies the real hard-right Brexiteers, for whom nothing will sate their appetite.
As many people have remarked, the situation in Scotland is quite different; 62% of the people of Scotland did not vote for this mess. Had teenage voters and most people in Scotland born elsewhere in the European Union been allowed to take part in that decision, the figure would have been far higher still, as it would if the question were asked again today. It is my responsibility to represent the people who elected me.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
On the issue of votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, I believe that all men and women are born equal and that everybody in this place should be equal. Amendment 10, which fortunately was not selected today, would have given 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland and Wales the vote, but—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Lady is out of order; amendment 10 is not debatable.
Tommy Sheppard
I am confused as to why that particular intervention should have been made at this point in my speech, but I will mention the issue when I come to consider the amendments before us.
I think it was the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) who said that the outcome of an election could be another hung Parliament, without a majority one way or the other. That, of course, is true. But an election will allow us all the opportunity to refresh a mandate. I for one believe that there are far too many people in this Parliament who are imprisoned by an out-of-date mandate from 2017 that is against what they would do now, having considered the matter. It will give colleagues, particularly those in Her Majesty’s Opposition in seats where a majority voted to leave the European Union, the opportunity to go there and argue, if they so wish, for a rethink and for this matter to be put back to the public before any final decision is taken. That mandate was not present in this Parliament; it could be present in a new Parliament. That is another reason why an election would be welcome.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
It is a fact that in the 2016 referendum electoral offences were committed by Vote Leave—the campaign that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and their chief adviser were actually involved in. Is not this general election an opportunity to highlight their role and for a new Government to investigate that properly—something that has not been done under this Government?
Tommy Sheppard
Indeed, there would be the opportunity to do that. Those transgressions should be investigated and they do undermine the result of the 2016 referendum. That is yet another reason why the electorate should be allowed to look at this matter again.
I want to be very clear that with regard to mandates in Scotland, we will be fighting this general election with three objectives: first, to stop Brexit, not to rubber stamp it; secondly, to get rid of the most right-wing Tory Government in my lifetime; and thirdly, to demand that people in Scotland have the right to choose an alternative future—an alternative path for doing things— and should not be dragged along against their will. We will put that case to the people in Scotland, and if we win that mandate and win that election, then I demand that other people in this Chamber respect that decision and do not stand in the way of the people of Scotland when they next seek the opportunity to determine their own method of governance.
Let me turn, in closing, to the amendments. I will not discuss amendments that have not been selected, but I simply say that it is a matter of regret that, at this time of political crisis when we are discussing how to get out of it, we are not able to seize the opportunity to extend our franchise and allow two very important groups of people in our community who have a vested interest in the outcome of this decision—more than we do—the opportunity to participate.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
On voting age, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman appreciates—I am sure he does—that those who were 17-year-olds in 2016 were 18-year-olds and of voting age in 2017, when 56% of voters in Scotland voted for either the Conservative party or Labour, both of which, if only at the time in the case of Labour, were committed to delivering Brexit.
Tommy Sheppard
I am unclear that that is an argument against 16 and 17-year-olds being able to vote in this election or, indeed, in any subsequent election.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I entirely concur with the hon. Gentleman’s point; indeed, I made it more widely on Second Reading. It is a shame that we are not doing this—although obviously we are not able to discuss amendments that have not been selected.
Tommy Sheppard
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I think there is actually a broad level of agreement among Members across the House, including the odd one over on the Conservative Benches as well, that the time has surely come to extend the franchise. I hope we do not end up in a situation where we have a general election in December and it will be another five years before we can even consider this possible enfranchisement. It would therefore have been a timely opportunity to seize the issue, but we have chosen not to do so.
On the amendments that have been selected, we are very much in favour of the one suggesting that the election should move to 9 December, and we shall vote for it tonight. The Government said that they wanted an election as soon as possible, so why would they not wish to have it three days earlier than the date—
Tommy Sheppard
I think I have taken enough interventions, in fairness—I need to conclude.
Tommy Sheppard
No, thank you. [Interruption.] No, thank you. Which part of “no” don’t you understand?
A 9 December election brings a number of benefits. It enables more of the electorate to participate and it puts an extra little bit of distance between the election and Christmas. Furthermore, it does not inconvenience our ability to conclude our business in this Parliament in any way. We could get our business finished and have Dissolution at the end of this week, so it is entirely doable. I do not understand why the Government, who have been so determined that there must be an election as soon as possible, are so resistant to doing it three days earlier. Let us do it as soon as possible, in order to get this lot out as soon as possible.
Sir Hugo Swire
On the last point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), I should declare an interest: St Andrew’s day will also be the day of my 60th birthday.
By 30 November, I shall no longer be a Member of Parliament, because I am not standing at the forthcoming election. I have been here since 2001, and I have to say that the last few years have not been Parliament at its best. It would be difficult to find a rare statement made by any one of us over the past two years. It has been like groundhog day every day, and the public are getting extremely fed up with our behaviour. In fact, I have never known such a disconnect between the body politic and the public, and I believe that any device or attempt to frustrate our having a general election now will be viewed extremely badly by the public, who, as I say, are extremely fed up with our behaviour.
We all understand why the Scottish nationalist party wants to have an election—because it knows that the court case starting in January will lay bare the divisions between those who support Alex Salmond and those who support Nicola Sturgeon. SNP Members know that if the election is delayed until next year, they will suffer at the polls. It is strange for a party that prides itself on looking after one of the devolved parts of the United Kingdom to play party politics with Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) laughs in rather a tinny way.
Sir Hugo Swire
No, I will not give way. As a former Minister of State for Northern Ireland, which I do not believe the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) is, I care passionately about Northern Ireland, and I am concerned about some aspects of how the proposed legislation affects Northern Ireland. That said, it is my understanding that if the date of the election is brought forward, that will prevent much of the legislation we need to empower the civil service in Northern Ireland to do their job. Why are the Scottish Nats prepared to play politics, and to what end, with the people of Northern Ireland if they care about Northern Ireland, or perhaps they wish to cast them to one side?
I am extremely glad and relieved that the wrecking amendments have not been selected, such as the one giving EU nationals the right to vote in British elections. I ask again: where can British citizens vote in national elections in the EU? The answer is nowhere. In terms of the sudden discovery that votes should be given to 16-year-olds as a matter of course, everybody realises that that cannot be done in the timetable available; it is another wrecking amendment.
The British people are watching our deliberations this evening. They want an election. They understand that the date for the election is partially informed by the desire to have good governance and good government for the people of Northern Ireland. It is worth remembering that the institutions are not up and running there. It would be foolhardy to bring the election forward by a matter of days and frustrate that, and therefore amendment 2 should be resisted.
Andrew Percy
My intervention was somewhat long, so I thought I would make a speech to make a small contribution to this debate.
I absolutely welcome the fact that we are going to have a general election. It is a sadness, in a way, that this Parliament has not been able to run its full term, particularly given that the last one also ran for only two years. This Parliament has not been able to run its full term because, very sadly, people in this place did not do what they said they were going to do in the 2017 election, which was to honour the referendum result.
We have heard some of that in some of the speeches this afternoon. What has gone on since that election in 2017, in which the overwhelming majority of us were re-elected to deliver Brexit? I accept that the SNP Members had a different position, and they have consistently followed the line they took in the general election, but that is not the case for most of the rest of us. What has happened is that we have seen the belittling of the referendum result and talking down to the people who dared to vote to leave the European Union.
We have heard some of that again today. Indeed, the contribution of the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), did the same, implying that Brexiteers and people who voted leave did not really know what they were voting for.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Andrew Percy
If the hon. Gentleman will give me a moment to let me finish my point, I will then give way to him.
We have seen consistently throughout that people who did not vote for Brexit and are on the other side of the debate consistently tell Brexit voters what it is that we voted for, and they think they have the right to interpret what—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. No, it is not a debate about Brexit; it is debate about the clauses and amendments. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman is trying to widen the debate from where we are. We are on the clauses and amendments. Has the hon. Gentleman now finished?
Andrew Percy
I am responding to a speech made in the Chamber, Sir Lindsay, and directly to a point that was made.
Tommy Sheppard
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because I just want to clarify this on the record. At no time has any of us ever said that people did not know what they were voting for in the Brexit referendum in 2016. What we do say is that they were wilfully lied to in that campaign.
Andrew Percy
That is exactly the point. It is saying that the people who voted remain knew full well what they were doing, but Brexit voters were misled, they were a bit daft, they were lied to and, uniquely, they could not see through it.
Andrew Percy
No, I will not give way to the hon. Lady.
Some want to talk about promises made in a referendum campaign about whether people would be poorer or richer afterwards, but I am afraid we will take no lectures from the SNP on this matter.
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
We hear what it believes to be the voice of Scotland, but the SNP is the voice of some of Scotland. What SNP Members do not often say is that more people voted in Scotland to leave the European Union in 2016 than voted for the SNP at the general election in 2017—and that is a fact. A lot of people in Scotland voted to leave the European Union.
Andrew Percy
Indeed, that is absolutely true, but, as I have said, in fairness to SNP Members, their position on wanting to cancel Brexit is at least a consistent one, and one on which they stood in the 2017 general election.
We also heard this in the intervention by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who again suggested that there was some sort of fiddling in favour of leave. This is why this Parliament is so broken, and why this Parliament is—
Andrew Percy
No, I am not giving way because I have not finished my point. All I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that, after the 2015 election, his party was fined for election expense failings—I think over the Ed stone, as it was called—and Momentum received the biggest fine that any political group has received in the UK. I do not question the hon. Gentleman’s mandate from either the 2015 election or from 2017 because his party was responsible in one election for technical breaches when it came to expenses law, or, in the case of the 2017 election, because one of the groups within his party—
Ian C. Lucas
We are talking not about technical breaches, but about collusion to break electoral spending limits: collusion in which the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Dominic Cummings were involved. That is important. I voted for article 50 and I was misled by a campaign that I found out about after I had voted. I take that seriously. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman does not. I believe in keeping the law.
Andrew Percy
I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has done nothing to deliver on his 2017 election manifesto since that vote, which was to deliver Brexit. It is a prime example of why this Parliament is so broken. Never mind the £1 million that was funnelled to various remain groups towards the end of the referendum campaign; never mind the millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money used to campaign for remain; never mind all the institutions of the state that were used—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I am going to deal with the point myself. We are not broadening the debate. Others wish to speak and we are getting bogged down in something that is not relevant to the clause and the amendment. You have answered the question at least five times already, Mr Percy, and I would love to hear from Michael Tomlinson who is next to you. He is desperate to get in.
Andrew Percy
We have two hours for this debate, so I hope we will get to hear other Members.
The Chairman
Order. You are a former member of the Panel of Chairs. You know exactly what I am relating my comments to. We have allowed a little movement away from the clause and the amendment, and I now want you to speak about them. If not, other Members wish to speak.
Andrew Percy
I am responding to points that were made in other speeches and interventions in the debate, but I will of course—[Interruption.] Opposition Front Benchers need to calm themselves. I know they are not looking forward to an election because they broke their promises from the 2017 election, but they need to calm down. I will of course follow your ruling, Sir Lindsay, because after all you did me the honour of putting me on the Panel of Chairs.
This Parliament is broken precisely because the votes of the majority of this country—17.4 million people—in 2016 have not been respected. That is why we have to have a general election.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
My hon. Friend says that Parliament is broken. It is not just broken; it is as dead as a dodo. This Parliament cannot do anything—there is constant dither and delay. The public want us to get on and deliver, and a general election allows us to do that.
Andrew Percy
My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why we must bring this Parliament to a close. On the amendment, and whether the date is 9 or 12 December, I am not particularly bothered. I just want my constituents and the people in the constituencies around mine, who I am afraid have been let down by their Members of Parliament who have not kept their promises from the 2017 election—all the constituencies around me voted by a huge margin to leave the European Union—to have a say for exactly the reason that my hon. Friend stated.
This Parliament has not kept its promises to the people. I am not especially bothered about whether it is 9 or 12 December. All I would say is that if we are worried about voters being confused about an election or unable to vote, changing the day is one way in which people could be confused. We have always voted—I do not know for how long, but certainly in my short years on this planet—on a Thursday. A change in the day could be confusing. If we have to vote on 9 December, so be it, but 12 December should be the date because Thursday is the day we normally vote.
Andrew Percy
No, I will not give way any more.
I want to make a final point about the tone of the forthcoming general election campaign because it will be important. We have heard a lot of attacks on the Prime Minister in the last few days in the Chamber. An analysis out today said that the person who has been on the receiving end of the largest amount of bile and personal attacks is the Prime Minister. We will see more of that in the election campaign.
The 2017 general election campaign was the worst I have ever been involved in when it came to behaviour. I have fought eight election campaigns in my short life. As the Leader of the Opposition is here, I hope he will reflect on the words he uses in the campaign. What happened at the last election was in his name. My staff were spat at in his name and I was attacked in the street by people chanting his name at me on his behalf because of the divisive language he consistently used in the run-up to that election. I will take him at his word that in this election he will encourage his supporters and party members to engage in better behaviour. The 2017 election was, for many of us, an appalling campaign to go through, with abuse, threats, damage to property and damage to constituents’ property perpetrated, in some cases, in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I hope the campaign in December is a more civil one on all sides. This is not a matter that one side owns. I hope we will all conduct ourselves somewhat better in the forthcoming election.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I am going to make a change in tack from the previous three speakers and actually speak to some of the amendments that have been tabled. However, I first want to pick up on the really important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) at the end of his speech. We all heard about a “kinder, gentler politics”. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and, like him, I look forward to fighting a positive campaign on the issues, seeing that kinder, gentler politics on the doorsteps and in the conduct of each of us. Perhaps that is a pledge that we can each make right here and right now.
I am also following the contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). It was a great pleasure to hear him speak. I hope he heard the cheers from the Back Benches, effectively crying for more. We cannot believe that he is retiring at such a young age and that this House will be deprived of his voice in future Parliaments. I say that with all sincerity. It was a great pleasure to hear him make a small contribution to this particular debate, following such a distinguished career in this place. It has been a great pleasure working alongside him in a number of campaigns.
I join the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), who I think welcomed, very briefly, the technical amendment tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Minister. I, too, welcome that technical amendment and will be supporting it. I hope it will not be pressed to a Division.
I want to turn to amendment 2, which relates to the date of the election. We eventually heard the hon. Gentleman, after a 10-minute speech, turn to the clauses and the amendment. He gave what I thought were rather weak reasons for why he preferred 9 December to 12 December. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, I am perfectly prepared to fight an election on a Monday as much as a Thursday, but it seems to me that that is perhaps not the key point.
There are two key reasons why 12 December is to be preferred. The first is in relation to Northern Ireland business. It is incredibly important that the Northern Ireland Executive budget can complete its stages, so that the civil service can be in good shape and ensure that nurses, doctors and teachers are paid.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I was listening very carefully to the speech my hon. Friend is referring to and I was struck that there was no real explanation why it makes a difference where a student casts their vote, whether at home or at university. They can do a postal vote if necessary.
Michael Tomlinson
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Evidence shows that 70% of students cast their vote in their hometown in any event. It seems to me to make no difference whether it is during term time or not. In fact, that seems to miss the point. Most terms end on 13 December, not on 12 or 9 December. Most close on either 13 December or the week after. Therefore, this wheeze—it does seem to be a wheeze and a point of division, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole said—does not even work at face value, because students will still be in place on 12 December.
Ian Mearns
As a school governor, I know about the disruption caused to schools used as polling stations on a Thursday. If the school has to close, that often means that children will miss not only the Thursday but the Friday, because parents will keep them off for an extended weekend. That situation would be circumvented if the poll took place on a Monday, because parents would bring their children in from Tuesday to Friday—[Interruption.] I am being told by Government Members that that is a load of nonsense, but as a school governor with about 37 years’ experience I know, unfortunately, that kids have missed important days of education on many occasions. If the amendment prevented that from happening in some schools, it would be good for that reason only.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) responds, there is a lot of chatter going on, which makes it difficult to hear the speaker and interventions from others. If colleagues want to have conversations, perhaps they can leave the Chamber. This is obviously a fascinating debate and we all want to get the most out of it.
Michael Tomlinson
The fact that you are listening to me, Dame Rosie, makes me so pleased. It makes me smile.
I take very seriously the intervention from the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns). I, too, have been a school governor, although my experience is not as great as his. I bow to him for the number of years he has been a school governor. However, as to whether the poll is on a Monday or a Thursday, it seems to me that his point does not make a difference. I would prefer it if no school days were disrupted and if local authorities could find alternative venues, which from time to time they can. Temporary polling stations can be put up at short notice. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point seriously, but I do not see that it makes a difference, as to whether the poll is on a Monday or a Thursday. I do not see that that particularly has an impact on the schools: it seems to me that, if a school is going to be interrupted, it may as well be interrupted on a Thursday as on a Monday. I heard his point about the Friday but, in my experience, which is more limited than his, I have not witnessed schools extending the weekend. I understand the point he was trying to make, but I really do not think that it makes a difference whether it is the Thursday or the Monday. My view, for what it is worth, is that schools should not be disrupted, if at all possible, and that we should find temporary polling stations.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
On the issue of access to polling stations, my hon. Friend may wish to consider the fact that my electoral registration officers in Suffolk tell me that it is particularly challenging to get access on a Sunday to village halls and many of the other places where votes will take place on a Monday. Will he reflect on that, the importance of holding the election on a later day in the week, and the need to stick with Thursdays, which is the convention?
Michael Tomlinson
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, because I had not considered that point before. It is a live issue, given that polling stations have to open early in the morning. In Dorset as much as Suffolk, who is going to hand over the key to the village hall? When will it be collected? There are practicalities involved. He has made a powerful point and given a third reason, in addition to my previous two, why Thursday should be preferred to Monday.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some important points. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). The halls would need to be prepared on a Sunday for a Monday, and we would also potentially have to pay double time for wages, which would involve extra expense. Frankly, however, we should not be using schools as polling stations. We should not be interfering with children’s education. Some years ago, my constituency gave up using schools and found alternatives. The most popular polling station we now use is in a pub. There are alternatives that do not deny children their education, whether on a Monday or a Thursday.
Michael Tomlinson
The pub is the hub—I have heard that somewhere before—and why should not it be used as a polling station? I often hold surgeries in different pubs across the constituency of Mid Dorset and North Poole. It seems to me that that is a perfectly reasonable place to hold them.
Concerns have been expressed on Mumsnet that nativity plays and the like may be interfered with. If that can be avoided, I would certainly support that.
Ian Mearns
I would be very happy to vote in a pub, but many of my neighbours from the Orthodox Jewish community might not be. We should think about religious orthodoxy and the use of public houses as polling stations.
Michael Tomlinson
Again, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention; as ever, he is thoughtful and he has made a considered point. Although those two issues have just been pointed out to me—about Sunday tipping into Monday and using alternative provision—what my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said still stands: if at all possible, we should avoid using schools as polling stations so that they can stay open, whether that is for nativity plays, Latin, maths, or whatever. I would not be against using a public house, as I am not for surgeries, but I take on board the point made by the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman’s point is mainly about polling stations, but is he aware that there are big issues in booking a large enough venue to hold an election count? Many local authorities may struggle to find a venue at this time of year.
Michael Tomlinson
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I had not considered that but I do not think that it is a distinguishing feature, when voting on this measure, between whether the election is held on the Monday or the Thursday. I take that serious point on board but, in my view, if there is pressure on accommodation in December, it would be no different on a Monday than on a Thursday.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we have cast aside many traditions over the last few years and that this place has got rid of what we hold dear? If we are to have a debate about the right day for an election, surely that should be done soberly and decently, at the right time. I understand that many of our EU friends hold elections over the weekend. We should have time for a debate in future and not do this on the back of a cigarette packet today.
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend is reinforcing my primary point about why I believe that the Thursday should be preferred: it is the traditional day. I do not have the precise figures, but I am sure that the Minister will when they respond to the amendments. It is traditional that these votes happen on a Thursday. It has happened on other days, but in Mid Dorset and North Poole, that is the routine and we are used to voting on a Thursday.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Ind)
I echo what my hon. Friend is saying. It seems absolutely clear that the will of the House is that elections in this country should always be on a Thursday—always on a Thursday! But the silver lining—it is a small one—to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is that this is the first time that we have had a debate in this Chamber about elections, and there are lots of interesting ideas. My best polling station is a garden room in Woolstone. Where should we have our polling stations? More and more people are voting by post, and what about voting on an app for our young people when they are at university? [Interruption.] You see? Already a lively debate has started, so after the Tories win the election on 12 December, let us resolve, as one of the first things we do, to have a proper, full day’s debate on the manner and practice of elections in the United Kingdom.
The Second Deputy Chairman
The right hon. Gentleman is right: there is time to have a debate on the lines that he suggests, but this afternoon, we are discussing the date of the election. We are not doing that well on the chatter front, by the way, so can we revisit the fact that we need to listen very carefully to the speeches that are being made? A big effort.
Michael Tomlinson
Thank you, Dame Rosie. My right hon. Friend has great expertise in telecommunications and he makes an interesting point about technology—I take your point that it does not really take us further forward in terms of the date and this amendment, but he makes an intriguing point. I note that the Leader of the House is sitting in his place. Doubtless if my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage revisits that point on Thursday during business questions, perhaps that can be taken forward at a future date. He has certainly hit upon something. We all have an interest in this and, dare I say it, a small amount of amateur expertise on it as well.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that the political editor of The Sun has just tweeted that the Government have conceded on the 9 December election date. If that is the case, does he agree that we should just get on with the vote?
Michael Tomlinson
The editor of The Sun has not contacted me personally, so I was not aware of that, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for enlightening not just me but the whole Chamber.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I want to make a couple of points. First, next week is Parliament Week, and many schools already have arrangements to talk to their pupils about Parliament. That could be enlivened if by then we are in the middle of a general election. Secondly, in Rayleigh we recently experimented with establishing a polling station in the Travellers Joy pub. We had a by-election there recently against the Liberals, and we won, so I am all for it.
Michael Tomlinson
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his recent victory. As ever, he makes a very sensible point.
Mr Nigel Evans
If the news is that a deal has been done about 9 December, it would be instructive if we were to be told, because clearly it would influence our contributions in this relatively short debate. Has my hon. Friend had any indication of whether a deal has been done? I have the same reservations as he does. I have fought a lot of parliamentary elections in my life since 1987. Up until the Ribble Valley, I had lost them all. [Laughter.] Times have got better since then. Elections have always been on a Thursday. I cannot remember them ever being on anything other than a Thursday. Does he agree that, if it is switched to a Monday, a lot of publicity will be needed? People must know it is on a Monday. It is also vital that postal and proxy votes are applied for.
The Second Deputy Chairman
Quite a few people want to speak in this debate, so I urge hon. Members to keep their interventions fairly short.
Michael Tomlinson
I will take your comments very seriously, Dame Rosie, and bring my remarks to a close shortly.
My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. I have not received information directly, from the editor of The Sun or anyone else, about the rights and wrongs. Quite often they are whispers in the wind with no truth attached. They might be true on this occasion, but I have not heard. I agree, however, that it would be incredibly helpful to know if that were the case, because then speeches may be curtailed or changed. I repeat my point: whether it is on a Friday, a Monday, a Thursday—whatever the day—we will be prepared and ready. It does seem that there are advantages to a Thursday as opposed to a Monday, but if it happens to be a Monday, so be it. We will get on and fight it.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I understand that moving the election date to 9 December would imply a Dissolution this Thursday, which would greatly constrain those of us who have made arrangements on Friday and early next week for Parliament Week. There are all sorts of protocols with respect to schools about having Members of Parliament visit them, but we would no longer be Members of Parliament and they would be obliged by those protocols to invite all the candidates, which is very difficult to arrange at short notice.
Michael Tomlinson
That was a rather longer intervention than some of my right hon. Friend’s interventions, but he makes a very good point. During the campaign, we will no longer be Members of Parliament, which has a bearing not just on schools and school visits, but on events such as Remembrance Sunday. I understand we are expecting a ruling or some guidance from Mr Speaker on that point.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I just popped out to ask an authoritative source whether we have given way on the date, and I understand that the Government have not given way, but who knows what discussions are going on.
Michael Tomlinson
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, not least because it means we can hear from other colleagues on this point. It shows that these whispers on the wind are not always accurate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t—we will find out in due course.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, quite apart from the consequences for constituency activities, a crucial consequence of an early Dissolution would be for the business of the House and the threat of losing crucial legislation, such as the Northern Ireland Budget Bill, which is essential if Northern Ireland civil servants are to be paid and a Government shutdown avoided?
Michael Tomlinson
That is one of the key points. Thursday is the traditional day, but it is indeed important to ensure that the civil service is up and running in Northern Ireland, and that is the main reason why I will support this measure if it comes to a vote.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye. I intend to make a very short contribution to this important debate. I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). He is one of the up-and- coming Members, and he has made some useful and telling points.
This is the fourth time Parliament has been asked to hold a general election. The nation has been in schism, unable to do anything worthwhile as the dreadful problem of Brexit hangs over us. I should have infinitely preferred this Parliament to have sorted the Brexit problem out so that we could have left the EU on 31 March, before holding a general election, but the fact is that we have not sorted it out, and we are now in this position.
We are in this position because the coalition Government, under my right hon. friend the then Member for Witney, passed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which the Bill seeks to amend. That Act was passed in a very different time. It was passed with the purpose of ensuring that the coalition could not end early, and it was passed in undue haste, without proper consideration of what the consequences might be in a situation in which there was no overall majority in Parliament. I think that one of the first things that whoever gains a majority in the House after the election will want to do is revisit the Act to see whether we want to alter its provisions so that we never get into this situation again.
As I have said, for too long this Parliament has been paralysed. It has been three years and four months since we held the referendum.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I think that it seems an eternity.
Indeed, 80% of Members voted to trigger article 50, and most Conservative and Labour Members produced manifestos in 2017 in which they pledged to honour the result of the referendum, yet Parliament has still not resolved the matter. I am therefore delighted that we appear to be moving to the likelihood that the House will pass this Bill tonight. The only question that remains—posed by the Opposition’s amendment 2—is whether we will have an election on 9 or 12 December.
My marginal preference is for a Thursday election. As many Members have already said, Thursday elections are a long tradition for a number of very good reasons. Mention has been made of problems with booking halls and rooms that would be big enough for the count, but I think that most competent authorities can deal with that. Indeed, I know from discussions with my local authorities that they have already booked the venues. Those in charge of the schools, halls, libraries, garages, pubs and community centres in which the polling stations will have already been warned and will have already agreed that they can manage an election some time in December.
I take the point about the need to complete Northern Ireland business. I should have thought that we could do that on Thursday if we are to prorogue on that day, but it is vital for it to be completed, because it gives legal authority for public funds to be drawn down.
We can all discuss the pros and cons of the 9th and the 12th, and that is an important part of the debate. I think that there are some pros and cons. The 9th is marginally farther away from Christmas; however, although the venues have already been booked, an election on the 12th would give electoral registration officers a little more time to confirm those bookings, put their staff in place and make other preparations.
The staff do a terrific job during elections. We could not run an election without them. I have talked to them often during the seven elections that have taken place since I was first elected, and I know that they work incredibly hard. They often arrive at 6 in the morning and do not leave until well after the close of the polls at 10 pm. Often in my constituency—I hope no village or parish will take offence at this—the village hall is very draughty and cold, and I have seen them there pretty cold, and I would think they could be, in December, in a pretty cold situation, so I hope that they will have plenty of heaters to keep them warm.
An election now is absolutely essential. We need to resolve by a general election, through a full franchise, and by electing a new Government, a new Parliament, a new Executive, who will have the authority of that general election to resolve the Brexit question once and for all. I sincerely hope that we re-elect a Conservative Government with a good majority, so we can get it resolved.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I will preface my remarks about the choice between Monday 9 and Thursday 12 December by simply saying, “Thank God that this House now appears to be resolving the issue.” I say, “Thank God,” as the co-chair of the all-party humanist group, so I perhaps do not have quite the same certainty about the deity as many hon. Members and friends will have, but I think it is incredibly important for us, in our responsibility for all public servants in the United Kingdom and the national interest of the United Kingdom, to resolve the problem between the legislature and the Executive. We have got to a place where ordinary public administration is now extremely difficult to effect because of the uncertainty in this place and the impossibility of the Government actually carrying a coherent programme. So I say, “Thank God” advisedly.
I also say, “Thank God,” Dame Rosie, because of the selection made by you and your colleagues under the Chairman of Ways and Means for this debate, to ensure that it is properly focused on the in-scope issues of the Bill, because obviously the temptation for any piece of legislation to then have attached to it any number of different issues in a Parliament as incoherent as this one in terms of its make-up is self-evident. The discipline brought to our proceedings today is enormously welcome.
I also say, “Thank God,” because of what the selection means for the amendment passed earlier to the programme motion. I managed to miss that vote as I was engrossed in conversation with Baron Williams of Oystermouth about drugs policy and other issues. I was so engrossed in the conversation, and so grateful for getting hold of him after four months to be able to have a conversation with him, that I literally screened the bells out of my mind and so missed that vote. I confess publicly my error and, having thought missing an important vote is impossible for any competent person to do, I put that on the record with due appropriate humility for being so distracted. So there is a godly reason for having been so distracted: the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
I want to put in a word, however, for the poor old electoral registration officers, who will be faced with the challenge of doing an election in pretty short order at a difficult time of year. To ask them then not to go on the customary day of Thursday, and to do it on a Monday instead, will produce all sorts of challenges in terms of their normal availability and polling stations and anything else that would be available on a Thursday customarily. A point was also well made—I have forgotten which colleague did so, but I think that it was made by an Opposition Member—about the need to engage on Sunday to prepare for Monday. Again, we should think to at least some degree about the burden that they will have to carry in preparing for all this.
Then we come to the whole issue of advancing this election by three days. I am as anxious as anybody else to get our governance in the United Kingdom back on a sound footing, so that there is a sound coalition arrangement if a majority is not secured, although I am confident that we would win a majority at a general election. That is obviously part of my enthusiasm for us getting on and getting it done, but no one can take that for granted, as we learned from 2017.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I have just heard reference to the European ideal, and I would be grateful if my hon. Friend told me whether he has any evidence of what that really means. Has he ever heard anyone properly justify why they would want to remain in the European Union, which is utterly undemocratic and dysfunctional?
Crispin Blunt
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, but I suspect I might get into a deal of trouble if I were to follow him down that rabbit hole, Madam Rosie, although I would love to. If you will allow me briefly to reply to that point, I think it is actually about an attachment to internationalism and values that we can convince our young people can be carried out on a global scale as well. If the term “global Britain” is to mean anything, it must mean the values that motivate people with the European ideal of co-operation with our neighbouring states. Britain is big enough to do that on a global scale and to make our young people proud of their country, proud of its international standing and proud of its attachment to the rule of law and the defence of human rights. We are now tantalisingly close to being able to scope a new vision for Britain, and that is one of the reasons that it is terribly important to get on with this election.
Michael Tomlinson
My hon. Friend was trying to remember who made the point about Sundays and the potential difficulties involved in holding an election on a Monday. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), rather than an Opposition Member. Perhaps that will help to jog my hon. Friend’s memory and take him back to the date, which is the point of the amendment.
Crispin Blunt
I am obliged to my hon. Friend.
Those three days will be extremely important to the electoral registration officers and their teams who are faced with an election in short order, in exactly the same way as they are important to us for the sound discharge of our business here. I heard the business of the House statement yesterday, in which the Leader of the House pointed out the importance of getting a Northern Ireland Budget Bill passed before we dissolve. There is obviously a Northern Ireland interest involved. There is a central divide over the Brexit agreement that the Prime Minister has secured and over our role in upholding the Good Friday agreement. Tensions have risen in Northern Ireland over the treatment of Northern Ireland, and that will of course be a proper subject for discussion in the general election, particularly in Northern Ireland. It would be a pity if good administration in Northern Ireland were further affected by us accelerating our Dissolution so fast that we cannot get the Northern Ireland Budget Bill passed in good order.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
It is absolutely essential, in the absence of a functioning Assembly and without any prospect of having the Assembly up and running any day soon, that this Government take their responsibilities extremely seriously. I understand that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is determined to do that and to get the Northern Ireland Budget Bill through all its stages in short order, but it is also the responsibility of this Government—I do hope the Justice Secretary is listening—to honour their commitment to the victims of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland and to get the compensation scheme and the legislation through this House before we rise, if we rise and dissolve for a general election. It would be morally irresponsible of the Government to allow those victims to go uncompensated until the far end of a general election. That prospect is appalling.
Crispin Blunt
The hon. Lady makes an extremely powerful point and speaks to the general thrust of my argument, which is that we will be better able to deliver sound public administration if we give ourselves these three extra days. In terms of parliamentary procedure, if there are unconventional measures that the House is agreed upon, it should be possible to get some of them through with an extra 72 hours, but that would not be possible if we curtailed ourselves with an election date of 9 December.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
One of the pieces of legislation that my hon. Friend talks about is the Domestic Abuse Bill, on which there is widespread agreement across the House. Does he agree that it should be perfectly possible to agree to get the Bill through either before we dissolve, in the wash-up?
Crispin Blunt
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. If we have non-contentious legislation, the three extra days will be of enormous help in assisting the tidying up of our processes than would otherwise be the case.
There has been a discussion about students and about whether their being at university on 9 December or 12 December would make a significant difference, and that was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). The bulk of universities break up after 12 December anyway. We also know that the National Union of Students ran an extremely successful exercise to mobilise and register the student vote at university, which saw seats come into play that no one could have conceivably expected, such as Canterbury.
Mr Nigel Evans
The fact that students are in university must mean that they are quite bright, so they can work out whether they are registered at home, if it is different to their university town, and that they have the choice of designating only one location. They can then vote there in person, or if they have gone back home, they can have a postal vote or, indeed, a proxy vote. The Conservative party should not fear young people voting in these elections. In fact, we should welcome the fact that they are voting, because our manifesto will be far more attractive to young people than Labour’s.
Crispin Blunt
I sincerely hope that is the case. I have made submissions that I hope will make our manifesto more attractive to young people and much more forward looking.
We also ought to remember that there will be three extra days—or five, given that we will drift over the weekend—for people to get their postal votes sorted, which is important if we are to have a December election. I think it is now agreed that the absolutely overriding national interest is to resolve the strategic incoherence of the legislature and the Executive, and we will all need to mobilise people and be part of the campaign to assist people in registering for postal votes if the weather or light will affect their being able to get to a polling station.
All that will also be an additional burden on the electoral registration officers and their teams. For electoral registration officers trying to cope with the demands that we are about to present to them, the three days will be extremely important. There is a good case for widening the take-up of postal votes, not least for students and others who will be able properly to exercise the franchise to which they are entitled.
In conclusion, I hope that the House will consider my arguments. Having the election will resolve the incoherence of good public administration in the circumstances we face today. Dame Rosie, you and your colleagues have prevented us from disappearing down a rabbit hole in order to enable yet further delay and obfuscation by trying to change the nature of the franchise at very short notice. Goodness knows what problems that would then present unto the hard-pressed electoral registration officers on whose behalf I have trying to speak. I hope that the Committee will vote for sound public administration and to support our poor officials who do great work in enabling our democracy to function.
Sir William Cash
On a point of order, Dame Rosie. I seek your guidance on the selection of amendments. Am I right in believing that, although there has rightly been an enormous amount of concentration on the figures “9” and “12” in amendments 2 and 3, there is ample opportunity for us to consider the issues of clause stand part? The questions of clause 1 and clause 2 stand part are both important in their own right, and I would be glad to know whether you are able to confirm that—I noticed the Clerk nodding her head.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I can indeed confirm that. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman might be trying to catch my eye, so no doubt at that point he will address the very clauses he mentions.
Mr Nigel Evans
[Interruption.] Somebody said “too long,” and I think he has a point.
Let us be fair: neither 9 December nor 12 December is ideal. I have not fought a general election in December. It last happened in the 1920s, and I am not that old, even though I may look it at times. The timing is not ideal because, yes, it is close to Christmas and, yes, people’s minds are on other things, but the fact is we are not in an ideal situation.
The referendum was in 2016 and, three and a half years on, we still have not left the European Union because of all the wranglings of this place. There has been paralysis on this issue. We have had extension after extension, and the public have just about had enough.
I recently did a tour of about 12 villages in my constituency over two days, and I talked to a lot of people. They told me, “If we can’t get Brexit done, let’s have an early general election.” They did not specify whether 9 or 12 December is the best date. In fact, there was speculation that the general election might even be on 10 or 11 December, but that has clearly been taken out of play because we are now talking about only 9 or 12 December.
My constituents told me, “If Parliament can’t get Brexit done, at least give us the opportunity to look again at the composition of Parliament.” A number of our colleagues will be leaving anyway. Some of them were going to leave in 2020, but of course the previous election came early. They decided to hang on, probably expecting this Parliament to go five years, which no longer looks likely.
If, for whatever reason, we do not have an election on 9 or 12 December, who is to say the paralysis we have experienced over the past 12 months on this one issue will not spread to other legislation? I know people argue that we should have gone on after the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill got its Second Reading, but the fact is that 217 Labour Members voted against Second Reading. They did not want any scrutiny at all. They did not care, they were just totally opposed to the Bill going into Committee to see what amendments would be tabled. It is not as if we did not have a chance.
I understand those MPs who say, “Well, we do not like 9 or 12 December, because it is too dark and too wet,” but I just think people want it over. There was an opportunity to have had the election on 15 October. We offered that date, and whoever got elected could have decided to ask for an extension to article 50 or could have continued with the withdrawal agreement Bill, and we would have left on 31 October. That has not happened, so it is either 9 or 12 December.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
May I ask the hon. Gentleman to add his support to the important reason for having those extra three days before Dissolution, which is so that we can get the business relating to Northern Ireland through, not just the finance bit, but the bit about historical institutional abuse? Northern Ireland people are feeling very neglected by this Parliament, and doing this would make them feel that at the last minute we did something to satisfy everyone in Northern Ireland who really wants that legislation to go through.
Mr Evans
Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom and the hon. Lady is right to say that we need to ensure that we have time to get the legislation that pertains to that wonderful part of the UK through properly. We must make certain there is sufficient time for that, and that the legislation is not dropped and Northern Ireland has to wait until after the next general election for that to be dealt with properly.
There are lots of other reasons involved in this. We all have staff working here as well, and they need to have proper notice for all the plans they need to make for when we have Prorogation and they leave. A lot of people outside do not realise that when Prorogation comes and this place closes those of us fighting elections are pretty well banned from the parliamentary estate. I made the grave error once of having left something in my office, and I had to arrange to come to my office during an election. I was met by a security clerk, who walked with me to my office, let me into my room—all the rooms were locked—and then stood over me watching what I was taking out of the drawers. People do not appreciate all of this. So having an extra three days—[Interruption.] I can see the Opposition Chief Whip laughing, but it was proper stuff that I had left behind. [Laughter.] Yes, addresses, telephone numbers—who knows? So there is merit in having this time, as some people, particularly those elected in 2017, may not quite understand what is about to befall them when this place closes down.
It is therefore appropriate to have that lead-in and I am still persuaded by 12 December, because Thursday is the traditional day. It was probably chosen because it was the old market day. I know that lots of people have elections on a weekend. Clearly, we could have the election on a Sunday. I am a member of the Council of Europe and a lot of Council of Europe countries have general elections on a Sunday, but I can understand, from a religious point of view, why that might not be totally appropriate. I am even persuaded of having early voting, as whether it was 9 December or 12 December would not be as important for those who all of a sudden are told by their works that they have to be away. They may not know until a day before that they have to be away from their town and they may be away for two or three days, so it is too late for them to get a postal or proxy vote. I therefore rather like the idea of people being able to turn up to the town hall with proofs of identity—yes, photo ID—to prove that they are who they say they are and they live where they say they live, and then being able to cast their vote. Such an approach would mean that the ninth or the 12th, if we had this in play now, would be so important.
I hope that, no matter who wins the next general election, we can have a proper, considered debate about elections and the way they are held. We have heard all sorts of ideas about how schools should not be used, and I fully appreciate this—
Rehman Chishti
My hon. Friend uses the word “proper”. Does he agree that, as we head into this general election, it is vital that we have the firmest possible debates, but that they need to be done with civility and respect? In 2017, I had the worst campaign against me by my Labour opponent. On election night, a Labour group assistant on Medway Council said to an elected Member of Parliament who was giving his acceptance speech, “Fuck off back to country X.” My country is this great country and Gillingham is my home town, so do I fuck off back to Gillingham? That kind of—
The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. This is about the date of the election. It is not about the conduct of the election.
Mr Evans
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. We all know that, whether it is the 9th or the 12th, it is going to be a lively, vigorous campaign. We need to show respect, whatever the date. I was pushed by some people during the last general election campaign. A lot of people were quite surprised about that. It was outside a pub, after I had done a hustings, and all I can say is that a number of people were shocked.
Sir William Cash
My hon. Friend referred to the possibility of holding elections in schools. He might know what I am about to say. In his great constituency, there is a school called Stonyhurst College, which I happened to attend. Can he recall any occasion when Stonyhurst’s premises were used for elections?
Mr Evans
I do not believe so. It was used as the venue for the count for the by-election and the subsequent general election, which was fortunately only 12 months after, because I lost the by-election, but then won the general election in 1992.
We do not want to lose any school time. Nativity plays have been mentioned. We do not want to lose nativity plays, either. It has been said that losing some nativity plays at least brings to an end the farce that has gone on here. I fully appreciate that, but we do not want to inflict any sorrow on children who have been rehearsing for their nativity plays. If the election is on 12 December rather than 9 December, it will give schools the opportunity to plan ahead and to make sure that the rooms that are used will not conflict with any nativity plays.
Whether the election is on 9 or 12 December, people who are listening to this debate ought to take the opportunity now to ensure that they have postal votes or proxy votes. I have already bumped into a number of people who told me that they are going trekking in the Himalayas and are going to be away for five weeks. People are going on cruises and all that sort of stuff. I hope that people take precautions now. The most important thing at a general election is for people not to lose their vote and to be able to participate in helping to vote for the next Government of this country. Whether the election is on 9 or 12 December, I hope people vote Conservative and ensure that we deliver the Brexit that they voted for at the referendum.
Sir Desmond Swayne
I do not know if it is just my easy-going charm, but the worst I have ever heard in Pontypridd, West Bromwich and the New Forest is, “Sorry, mate—I’m Labour.” I hope that the Hansard reporters will not feel the necessity to record verbatim some of the words that we have heard this evening.
When the Minister replies, I would like him to comment on the implications of the difference of the three days between the two dates that stand before us and how that will impact on the date for nominations, and whether those days will fall either side of the publication of the new electoral register. When the new nomination form is filled out, the electoral numbers have to be recorded, and those numbers will undoubtedly have changed after 1 December. Is that going to present a problem? If so, I wonder if the Minister could draw attention to that.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. There is an essential democratic process that needs to be conducted before a general election, which is the selection of candidates. I suspect quite a large number of constituencies have not yet selected candidates. Members of local associations need these extra few days to have time to go through that process, and to avoid having candidates imposed from the centre.
Sir Desmond Swayne
We have had two Divisions in recent weeks on whether there should be an election, so I would have thought that those associations ought properly to have attended to the question of getting on with selecting candidates. I am sorry to hear that they have not, but there is not much that we can do about that. Certainly, the additional days would be of some assistance.
Crispin Blunt
My right hon. Friend should understand that, of course, central parties have a role in overseeing the selections in constituency associations. Therefore, a timetable has been applied to associations, which are anxious to select their candidates, but they have not been able to do so. I know that because of my engagement with East Surrey, which is not keen to have a selection shortlist of the kind that it had in 2010.
Sir Desmond Swayne
I can assure my hon. Friend that the independent members of my New Forest association would not tolerate anyone imposing a candidate or superintending the process, and I would hope that other constituencies would follow a similar line.
I will, if I may, come to the question of students. We have heard that, overwhelmingly, students choose to vote at home, that postal and proxy votes are available, and that 40 of the top universities will still be sitting on 12 September.
I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) was quite mistaken in an earlier intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson). He implied that students could be registered at only one address. That is not the case. Students are entitled to register at both addresses. Of course, it is important that they vote at only one of them. When I was the chairman of the Saint Andrews University Conservative Association—a former friend, Alex Salmond, will remember these events well—I saw it as my duty to ensure that all members of the Conservative Association were registered at both addresses, so that, in an election, we would be able to inform them as to where their vote would count for more. I undertook that task. Unfortunately, on the evening of the referendum, I think, in 1979, I was visited by members of Special Branch and charged with 53 offences against the False Oaths (Scotland) Act 1933. I got off the charges, but nevertheless it was certainly a very frightening experience. In those days, universities and university political associations went to great lengths to ensure that all their members were registered at both addresses. If that has continued, then it should not be a problem.
I conclude by saying that, having heard the speech—the very impressive Second Reading speech—of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), I can assure my hon. Friends that I would not be voting for this Bill with any great enthusiasm if she were the leader of the Labour party.
Sir William Cash
The clause stand part provisions raise very important questions of principle, which we must consider very carefully. It all goes to the question of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 itself. On Second Reading, I made the point very clearly—for those who are interested in looking at how that disgraceful Act was put through the House—that I was very, very strongly against it. I looked through the Division lists earlier on. I see my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) in his place—I think that he was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister at the time. I incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister by my absolute determination to do everything possible to ruin the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. In fact, I am afraid to say that we managed to muster only 10 Members of Parliament, and not always that. On one occasion, I found myself with just one other person—the then Member of Parliament for Aldridge Brownhills, Sir Richard Shepherd. He and I ended up as the only ones who voted on that. That is why I am specifically thinking about the manner in which this important Bill is being brought through the House. There was a particular amendment that I took the gravest interest in during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and we are now dealing with an amendment to make provision for a parliamentary general election to be held on 9 December as compared with 12 December—the date in the Bill itself. It has already been ruled that clause stand part is an integral part of these proceedings, and I have every intention of making the points that I want to make on that, having had the ruling that I did from the previous incumbent of the Chair.
I refer to a very important website called the Public Whip. When I got my information from the Library today, I noticed that the Public Whip said that I—the Member of Parliament for Stone—was very “strongly against” the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I can tell hon. Members why, and it is very simple. I was against it because it gave the Whips an undemocratic power and created the shenanigans of upsetting the rule regarding simple majorities for general elections; and that is why we are in the mess we are in now.
Mr Duncan Smith
I was a member of the Government at the time of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and was therefore bound to support the proposals. However, I recall that one of the discussions that took place was that there should be a sunset clause, meaning that the provision’s short purpose, which was to do with sustaining a Government at the time, would have gone away and we would have returned to the other method. I did make the point, as I am sure my hon. Friend has, that when we fiddle with the constitution without proper checks and balances, there will almost invariably be very heavy consequences, but that point was never quite taken.
Sir William Cash
Indeed. It is when sunset comes to an end that Dracula comes out of his crypt. I am not referring to my right hon. Friend, of course. What I am saying, however, is that the consequences of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act have been abominable for the proceedings in this House.
Mr Whittingdale
May I congratulate my hon. Friend on the perspicacity that he showed during the passage of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, as he has done on so many other occasions? He might recall that the then leader of the Liberal Democrats advocated the Fixed-term Parliaments Act on the basis that it would give much greater political stability to our system in future years. Does my hon. Friend agree that that was about as accurate a prediction as all other Liberal Democrat predictions?
Sir William Cash
Absolutely, and of course that legislation was cobbled together for the very simple reason that they wanted to keep in with the Liberal Democrats. That was the real purpose of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and it was one of the most pernicious aspects of the coalition.
I understand, by the way, that part of the coalition deal included a plan to get rid of the 1922 committee. The coalition wanted to bring Ministers into that committee, which would have destroyed it. I fired what could be described as an almighty Exocet, and guaranteed that Ministers would not be allowed to vote—on the pro bono advice that we received from a very eminent QC whom I instructed.
A book by Matthew d’Ancona was brought to my attention a few months ago. On reading it, I found—to my astonishment but great interest—that the then Prime Minister, in a conclave with his closest advisers before the coalition began, was talking about the coalition and how he was going to conduct his Prime Ministership, and he said to those advisers, “I have a choice to make. Am I going to go into a coalition with Nick Clegg or Bill Cash?” I found that most interesting.
That is why this clause stand part debate is highly relevant. We have this extraordinary situation in which the whole issue of an early general election is, largely speaking, the product of all the shenanigans on the Opposition Benches and the other shenanigans with our own colleagues in the House, some of whom lost the Whip and all the rest of it. I strongly believe that this business of having a general election, which, but for this Bill, would not have been put through, is connected with the very reason why people wanted a coalition back in 2010, which was to stop people like me banging on about Europe—I remember the then Prime Minister saying that—but they did not have a chance. That point has to be made.
Craig Mackinlay
My hon. Friend is making the most excellent points about the drawbacks of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which he was opposed to. Does he think that there is a salutary lesson here that this place should not legislate in haste at any time? Does he share my concerns about the rapidity and danger of the Benn surrender Act, which will stain this House for many years to come? Its effects are being seen today and will be with us for a very, very long time.
Sir William Cash
That is absolutely right.
Over the centuries, Parliaments have acquired their own names. For example, we have had the Barebones Parliament, the Rump Parliament and the Addled Parliament, and there has been the Mad Parliament. This Parliament ought to be called what it has now become—the Purgatory Parliament, with the shenanigans from the Opposition and from those who have been determined to remain in the European Union at any price. I have often had to upbraid them. I remember saying:
“I have heard of rats leaving a sinking ship but never of rats trying to sink a leaving ship.” —[Official Report, 18 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 503.]
That remains on the record from some months ago. I say it again for this reason: I believe very, very strongly that it is unconscionable that we should not have this general election. We need it because, above all else, we had the referendum which was itself put into effect by virtue of this House deciding, by six to one, that it would have it. That was in the parties’ manifestos. Opposition Members voted—some of them did and a few did not—by 499 to 126 for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Every single Conservative Member of Parliament, even the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), voted for the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent on 26 June 2018.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
My hon. Friend talked about rats. The exact quotation, if I recall it correctly, is that there are many examples in history of rats leaving a sinking ship but only one of mice joining one.
Sir William Cash
Ha, ha—well, I must say I find that very amusing, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying it.
The name that this Parliament has now acquired and deserves—the Purgatory Parliament—is, I believe, appropriate and right in the circumstances. I would say this to the Committee, as I did some weeks ago on another occasion: in the name of God, go. I believe that this is the moment for this Parliament to depart, in the words of Oliver Cromwell all those years ago. The Speaker has quite frequently referred to 17th-century precedents, so I say again to this Parliament: in the name of God, go. Let us get on with a general election and let us get Brexit done.
Mr Baker
Amendment 14 has the effect of aligning the registration deadline for Scotland with the registration deadline in the rest of the United Kingdom, by removing the need for the St Andrew’s day bank holiday in Scotland to be taken into account. I congratulate the Minister on his wisdom in bringing forward that sensible amendment, but I wonder whether he could confirm that Scotland is being treated fairly with this amendment. On the Conservative Benches, we are most concerned to ensure the fair treatment of Scotland. We are very proud that Scotland is in the United Kingdom, and we are determined to ensure the fair treatment of people throughout the great country of Scotland.
Patrick Grady
I hate to burst the hon. Gentleman’s bubble, but if the Government had thought it through, that would have been provided for in the original Bill. This may well have been gently pointed out to them from sources other than their own Benches.
Mr Baker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has just proven to me that, contrary to the remarks we hear so often from those on the SNP Benches, sometimes the British Government listen to the voice of Scotland, respect the voice of Scotland and act on the voice of Scotland. I am very proud of those on the Treasury Bench and grateful to the Minister for doing just that.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
My hon. Friend talks about the voice of Scotland. It is listened to, but he must remember that the SNP are not Scotland. They may sell themselves as such, but they are not Scotland.
Mr Baker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who reminds me that he is one of the most powerful champions of the voice of Scotland. Though I wish to pay tribute to him for a little longer, I should move on to amendments 2 and 3, which seek to change the date of the election. Why anyone would wish to move the date from the traditional day of a Thursday to a Monday, I cannot imagine. I am rather concerned that it is based on some perceived advantage of holding the poll on a Monday, which obviously would not be appropriate.
Dame Eleanor, I hope you will forgive me if I dilate a little on some of the other amendments. I received some constituency correspondence today asking me to back amendment 1, which relates to citizens of the European Union. Whatever our love for the citizens of the European Union who are in the UK, and however willing and delighted we are to embrace their work and welcome them to stay in the UK, it would be quite wrong to expand the franchise—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I understand why the hon. Gentleman is taking this opportunity to speak to amendment 1, but as that amendment has not been selected, it is out of order for him to speak to it. However, if he were to make his remarks in the context of amendments 2 or 3, he would be in order.
Mr Baker
Thank you, Dame Eleanor. I will just say, in the context of amendments 2 or 3, that any attempt to gerrymander the poll to try to produce a particular result would be wrong and outrageous. Some of the other amendments tabled, which went beyond amendments 2 and 3, were quite blatant attempts to produce a particular result. That is wrong, and I am grateful that they have not been selected.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that, if the marvellous Laura Kuenssberg is to be believed—I am sure she is—Britain would have been the only country in the European Union to allow non-nationals to vote in a general election?
Ian Blackford
I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that EU nationals are given the vote in Scottish elections, and they voted in the 2014 referendum. [Interruption.] I hear Conservatives shouting “national”; I hate to point this out, but Scotland is a nation.
Mr Baker
I think Conservative Members are quite comfortable with the notion that Scotland is a nation, but the United Kingdom is the basis for the electorate for this House, and it is quite right that the franchise should therefore be in citizens, or perhaps subjects, of the United Kingdom.
I do feel, Dame Eleanor, that I should now draw my opening remarks to a conclusion. I will simply say, on a serious note, that this Bill of course has to go through the other place. If the other place were to insert amendments in this simple and straightforward Bill that sought to produce a particular outcome, we would have to say that it has no right whatever to do that and that it would be quite unconstitutional. I think its Members would be playing with fire and, indeed, they would be playing with their own futures in that House were they to seek to amend the Bill to produce a particular outcome.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Thank you—perfect timing.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (IGC)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was hoping to move my manuscript amendment on Report. If the Bill has been amended, it should be reported to the House, and therefore I would like to move the manuscript amendment standing in my name.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I could not hear the hon. Gentleman very well, but is he suggesting that he would like to re-table or put in some other way an amendment that he had previously tabled and that had not been selected for discussion and a vote earlier today?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Now that the hon. Gentleman has raised the point, I am aware that he has tabled an amendment. I now have his amendment before me and am reading it. Because the knife has fallen, it is not suitable for discussion at this time.
Bill, as amended, reported.
Question put forthwith (Order, this day), That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Today’s vote lays down precedents which override the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, thus overriding one of Parliament’s checks and balances against excessive Executive power. Can you advise how to protect democracy in this place from further such government by fiat?
Mr Speaker
We are in unusual times; there have been many examples to evidence that over the last few months. Very specifically, what I say to the right hon. Lady is that the will of the House determines what happens in these matters, subject to the overriding principle of adherence to a clear rule. The right hon. Lady strongly objects to what has happened, but nothing that has happened today has been in any way disorderly: a Bill has been introduced; there has been a Second Reading; there has been a Committee stage; and there was a business of the House motion, in amended form, accepted by the House. The right hon. Lady has registered her discontent, which I was very happy for her to do, but beyond that the matter cannot be taken further tonight.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (IGC)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] I know that it is sometimes uncomfortable to speak truth to power. Mr Speaker, would it be in order to record that, in private, many of us have come to the conclusion that the majority of Back Benchers on both sides do not want a general election? As the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) has said, fear, from whatever quarter it may come, will be an abiding thing that will come out of this Parliament, and history will record that. A lack of courage from too many is also a mark of the end of this Parliament. Would it also be in order to record that I know from the conversations that take place in private—as you understand, Mr Speaker—that it is undoubtedly a fact that the majority of Members of this Parliament support a people’s vote rather than a general election?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who always speaks her mind, and I respect that. I know, however, that she will accept that that was a case of the right hon. Lady wanting to tell me and the House what she thought, rather than having any particular interest in me telling her what I think. But I will tell her what I think. What I think is that we do not work in this place on the basis of what people may or may not say to each other in private; we work on the basis of the decisions that are made by the House, and the House has made a decision in a perfectly orderly way. She has registered her objection to it, and we will have to leave it there. I hope—I sense that there is an appetite for this—we can now proceed with the business statement.
Mr Speaker
Well, I gently say to the hon. Gentleman, to the hon. Lady—I do beg her pardon—that it is quite important to have antennae attuned to the will of the House, so if she is going to do it, it will be one sentence.
Christine Jardine
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. For three and a half years, the Liberal Democrats have campaigned for the people of this country to have the final say. We would have preferred that to be in the form of a people’s vote, and we would now have preferred the general election to be on 9 December. But, Parliament having decided, we are ready to take this issue back and give people the chance to say whether Brexit is something they want to stop. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Somebody has said from a sedentary position that that was not a point of order, but I must say, for the benefit of members of the public, that that does not distinguish it from the overwhelming majority of what I will call purported points of order that are, in fact, not points of order. The hon. Lady has made her point, and we must now proceed with the business statement by the Leader of the House of Commons, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Wednesday 30th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to open the Second Reading debate. While this Government did not want an election, this Parliament has not been able to agree a way forward on the major political issue facing the country. The purpose of this Bill is to allow the public to have their say and to give the other place the mandate to resolve this deadlock.
Earlier this year, the other place voted three times on the withdrawal agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend Theresa May and, on each occasion, rejected it. Subsequent cross-party talks to seek a compromise also failed to agree a way forward. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister negotiated a new Brexit deal, which did win the support of a majority in the other place at Second Reading. However, MPs were unable to agree a timetable for the passage of the withdrawal Bill so, once again, this has meant that the other place has been unable to progress the required legislation.
I share the frustration of many around this House. We have sat and watched over the past few months while the House of Commons has repeatedly been unable to achieve consensus on a way forward. However, a December election has now been supported by the leadership of all major parties in the other place. This presents a chance to resolve the impasse that this country has endured for too long. The Government have tabled this short Bill to set 12 December as the date of the next general election. If it passes, this Parliament will dissolve 25 working days before the date of the poll. The Bill sets the date of the election in law and removes the discretion to set the polling day which otherwise exists under the early elections provisions in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The date of 12 December allows time for the Northern Ireland budget to pass before Dissolution, which is necessary so that the Northern Ireland Civil Service can access the funding it needs to deliver public services. The date also maintains the convention that general elections are held on a Thursday, which this country has followed since the early 1930s.
As noble Lords will be aware, only one amendment to the Bill was passed in the other place yesterday. The Government tabled an amendment to address the concern raised by the Scottish National Party, which was to ensure that the registration deadline for the election in Scotland was the same as that of the rest of the country. The effect of the amendment is to remove the St Andrew’s Day bank holiday from the calculation of time in relation to the deadline for registering to vote. It will instead be classed as a normal working day, but only for this election and only for limited purposes in relation to the electoral register. This will allow for a comprehensive UK-wide communications campaign by the Electoral Commission to advertise the deadline and ensure that all those in the UK who are eligible to register can do so within the same time period.
This Bill passed Third Reading in the other place by a majority of 418, and I think we can agree that the level of cross-party support for it there at this time was significant. Having an election will allow us all to put our case to the public, to give them the opportunity to decide how they want to move forward, and to ensure that the new Government have time to act before 31 January 2020.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, if the Bill is passed and the election takes place on that date, what is the earliest date on which Parliament can be reopened?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I may ask my noble friend to cover that point in his wind-up speech. I know that a number of conversations have been had, and I think that the Prime Minister has said something, but I do not want to put words in his mouth that are not accurate.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Oh dear. This might be the last time you see me here anyway, after that. But we will respond to the noble Lord.
I hope that noble Lords will reflect, in their usual measured and considered way, on the manner in which this Bill was passed yesterday in the other place and replicate that in your Lordships’ House today. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, when the Prime Minister was standing for election as leader of his party—and, therefore, Prime Minister—I asked an esteemed Conservative Minister and parliamentarian of some integrity whom he was voting for. I was surprised when he said Boris Johnson. I suspect he had his misgivings, but his reason was that he thought he was a winner. I countered that Boris Johnson would see Parliament as an inconvenience, and I regret that I am being proved right.
First, we had the unlawful Prorogation, when the Prime Minister attempted to shut down Parliament for five weeks. Then, last week, having gained parliamentary support for the Second Reading of his withdrawal Bill, he pulled the Bill only because MPs would not agree to an unreasonable programme Motion—not, as the noble Baroness said, to any kind of timetable; they would indeed have agreed to a timetable, just not that timetable. All that was being sought on that occasion was the normal and reasonable process of consideration and scrutiny. Then, having won the vote on his Government’s programme for the forthcoming year, he demanded a general election—thus again trying to avoid the normal and reasonable process of scrutiny of his legislation. Then, having failed to get a two-thirds majority for an election at a time of his choosing under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, he was obviously relieved and delighted when the Liberal Democrats and the SNP threw him a lifeline and offered to support an election. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, joked during the Queen’s Speech debate that these days fact is certainly more unbelievable than fiction; he is right. This is a book that nobody would have dared write.
When the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was introduced by the coalition Government, we were told that it would create strong and stable government, even from a minority Government. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who introduced the Bill for the Government, said that this would ensure that election dates would no longer be picked for a narrow, partisan, political advantage. We were given lots of high-minded, constitutional reasons why it was so important, yet our own Constitution Committee admitted to some scepticism, recognising that the Bill’s origins and content,
“owe more to short-term considerations than to a mature assessment of enduring constitutional principles or sustained public demand”.
Basically, the Conservative-led coalition Government sought to bind Parliament to give it a five-year term in power. Having succeeded in that, neither party now sees any further use for the legislation.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. What benefits did she think would accrue from a fixed-term Parliament, given that the Labour Party included a commitment to it in its 2010 election manifesto?
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I think the noble and learned Lord will find that, at the time, we proposed several amendments to the Bill that the noble and learned Lord rejected. Even in my wildest dreams, I did not suggest that it would be strong and stable government. I think the contradiction is that, at the time that the noble and learned Lord was taking the legislation through, he said that it would stop the politicisation of elections—nobody would call an election for political advantage. What do we think is happening at the moment?
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I will, because I think the noble Lord recognises the comment I made earlier in my speech.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I need to confess that I was the Member that the noble Baroness referred to, and I was right about Boris Johnson—he is a winner, as she is about to discover. She is making a very devastating criticism of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, so can we assume that in the Labour Party’s manifesto there will be a commitment to repeal it at the earliest opportunity?
Baroness Smith of Basildon
The noble Lord tempts me, and I have to say I would argue that case. Whether my party would fully accept everything I want in the manifesto is another matter, but I would certainly argue for it, because what is happening at the moment is that every time the Fixed-term Parliaments Act becomes inconvenient, the Government and their supporters could bring forward a Bill such as this in order to do away with it. Already, the Act has become nonsense.
During the Queen’s Speech debate, I joked that the first Bill in the Government’s programme would be a “Fixed-term Parliaments (Repeal) Bill”. I thought I was being clever—I have to say that my grandmother would have said I was being “too clever by half”. It was a joke, but I think it would have been a lot more honourable and honest to bring forward that kind of legislation. Perhaps the noble Lord and I could have a conversation afterwards, because if he wants to bring a Private Member’s Bill, I think it would find a fair amount of support in the House.
In that speech, I also joked about not having had a Queen’s Speech or Prorogation for more than two years, and then expecting two or even three in quick succession. I really was only joking, but some might now suspect I have a crystal ball in my office. The programme for government that we heard less than three weeks ago was, as we said at the time, a test run for the Conservative Party election manifesto rather than a serious programme for the coming year, but even we did not imagine that the election would be quite so blatantly soon. I have to say that the Tory Party’s enthusiasm for a general election every time it changes leader is proving to be rather expensive for the taxpayer. With a general election, a new Parliament and yet another Queen’s Speech all within a matter a months, perhaps the normally Conservative-supporting TaxPayers’ Alliance, with its diligent examination of public spending, will be sending an invoice to the Tory Party for the October event. If not, I might just be tempted to do so myself.
So much seems to have changed since 19 October. As we sat on a Saturday to consider the Government’s Brexit deal, I reflected that time and patience was running out for everybody: the public, the politicians and the EU. A situation without resolution was unacceptable to everybody. The bungling of Brexit has fractured our nation and divided friends, families and our politics. If MPs were unable to reach a conclusion on the slightly revamped but inferior deal, I conceded that the way forward would have to be to ask the public to consider the issue. The stalemate in Parliament has made me think again about a confirmatory referendum. A bit like in The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes,
“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
As I said then, if this was the best Brexit, one that a Brexit-supporting Prime Minister said was “a great deal”, then we should all have the confidence to ask the public if they agree. At the time, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, speaking for his party, agreed with me. He said—and I am sure that he will not mind me quoting him—that his party was,
“absolutely sure that an early general election would deliver it many more seats. The same cannot be said for the Conservatives or Labour”—
we will see about that—
“yet we do not believe it is in the national interest to have one”.—[Official Report, 19/10/19; col. 289.]
As my hero, Harold Wilson, would have said: “A week is a long time in politics”.
I said that my party will not stand in the way of this election: our doubts have been only about the timing, rather than the event itself, which we have been calling for and planning for for so long. I was sorry that our amendment in the other place for an earlier date was rejected. I wonder how tolerant a politics-weary electorate will be about interrupting their Christmas preparations to consider party manifestos. I hope that no party will be tempted to dress their leader in Santa costumes.
Let us be clear, first, that a general election is not just about Boris Johnson’s pledge to “do or die” or “Get Brexit done”. Those soundbites are about as meaningless as Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit”. A referendum would have been about the single issue of Brexit, but a general election is about so much more. It is about a vision for the direction of this country, and the Conservative Party will have to stand on its record. By contrast, we have an offer that will make a real difference for the people of this country in health, education, the environment, with a new generation of affordable homes and renters’ rights, free personal care for our loved ones who are most in need and a genuine transformative vision to support our economy and workers in creating the green future that we need. Inevitably, it will also be about the damage that a Johnson Brexit or a crash-out Brexit would do to our country.
Secondly, I make a plea for decency and integrity in campaigning. To hear a Conservative MP say that the country needs an election to “drain the swamp”, and other such inflammatory and disgraceful comments, is both sickening and dangerous. A general election based on the denigration of MPs from any party or all parties, who have been charged with the most difficult decisions and negotiations for a generation, would further undermine any public confidence in our politics. We expect our candidates and leaders to behave with the dignity that office demands, and we must pledge to do all we can to uphold that. If this election is truly to resolve the divisions largely caused by the bungling of Brexit, all parties must seek to heal as well as to win.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I have probably made more speeches than any other Peer arguing in favour of a referendum rather than a general election to reach a resolution on Brexit, so I am sure that many noble Lords find it rather perverse that I and my colleagues are supporting the Bill today. I last spoke in favour of a referendum, as opposed to a general election, as recently as 19 October, as the noble Baroness helpfully reminded the House. I did so in the belief that securing a referendum before the passage of the withdrawal Bill was possible. I was being assured by Members in the Commons from across the parties that that was so and that, by being patient, a pro-referendum majority would emerge.
However, to secure such a Commons majority, at least two out of three things would have to happen and, by the end of last week, it was crystal clear that none of them would. First, the DUP could have supported a referendum. It made it clear that it did not. All experience shows that when the DUP has adopted a firm position, it does not easily shift from it. Secondly, the bulk of the 21 Conservative rebels, who had at that stage had had the whip withdrawn, could have supported a referendum. Instead, with barely a handful of exceptions, they swung firmly behind the Bill. Many of them have now had their reward by getting the whip back. Thirdly, Labour could have united behind a referendum. It did not. From my conversations with Labour Back-Benchers, it became clear that people were so dug into their positions that they could not find a way to justify changing tack, even if they were minded to, which they were not.
By the weekend, it was clear to me that my long-held hopes and expectation that, at the last minute, there would be a majority in the Commons for a referendum, had been dashed. This view was shared by my colleagues in the Commons and by all serious commentators, and it was time to face that reality. If a referendum was off the table, only two courses of events were then possible. First, the Government could have secured an amended timetable Motion for the Bill and sought to get it through the Commons and the Lords in coming weeks. I believe that, had the Government pursued this course, they would have prevailed and a substantially unamended Bill would have passed. We would have been out of the EU by Christmas.
Secondly, we could indeed have an election that, imperfect as it might be, at least gives the people the chance to express a view on Brexit, as well who is best fitted to lead the country. To me and my colleagues in the Commons and your Lordships’ House, this is by far the better of these two evils. It is why we gave the Bill our support at Second Reading in the Commons yesterday. There are undoubtedly ways in which it might be improved, whether relating to the exact date of the election, the franchise or detailed election rules. There are also broader issues about the future of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, to which I am sure Parliament will wish to return after the election. However, I believe it would be a mistake to seek to delay the Bill today. The Commons has given it overwhelming support as it stands. Now that a decision in principle to have the election has been made, we should simply get on with it. I suspect the rest of the country shares that view.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)
Will my noble friend make clear that it would still be open to a Government, after the election, to hold a confirmatory referendum?
Lord Newby
It is indeed open to a Government to do that. In the unlikely event of there not being a majority Liberal Democrat Government, I heartily hope that that happens.
This will be the 10th general election in which I have been closely involved, since the formation of the SDP in 1981. In virtually every case, politicians argued at the start of the campaign that it was the most important election in decades. Of course, it was not and, in some cases, the election simply took the form of a rather fractious procession, but this election could be the most important in my political life.
At the end of each of the last nine elections and many more, the framework of party politics emerged fundamentally unscathed, but Brexit has been like a seismic shock to the system. This was most obviously seen in the European Parliament elections, where both Labour and Conservative did so badly. The conventional wisdom is that voters revert to type in a general election and, like a holiday fling, their infidelity in June will be forgotten under the harsh winds of December. But I am not so sure. The million people who marched 10 days ago in London, in opposition to Brexit, and the millions of others who could not make the journey, but shared their views, rightly see Brexit as the defining issue of the age and it will define their votes. Behind their determination to vote to stop Brexit lies a broader view of the kind of society they want: one that sees the positive value of working together to deal with the huge challenges facing humanity, be they climate change, migration and human trafficking or how to harness the potential of artificial intelligence; and one that embraces the future, rather than recoils from it. It is to those millions that the Liberal Democrats will direct our appeal over the coming six weeks, and it is a prospect that we relish.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, at last this depressing saga is coming to an end—this very depressing failure of the parliamentary system to address a major political crisis.
“even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea”.
I wish that I had written that myself, but I did not. It was written by a Victorian poet who presumably had no idea that there is a river that does not run somewhere safely to sea, and that is the Okavango. We have been in our Okavango time. Parliamentary processes have dried up in the middle of a political desert, so at last I can strongly support this Bill and we should get on with it.
However, I am going to add something else. We should get on with it unamended in any way, shape or form. But I want to express one reservation that goes back to something I go on and on about: let us be honest with ourselves and not be blind to the reality. We have once again tinkered with constitutional principles. There is a perfectly clear and unequivocal Act of Parliament that is extant and in force as I speak—the five-year Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011. What we have done is to find a creative political device to get around it, but we are leaving it in force. The Act will remain in force whatever we may do with this Bill.
We have spent all the time we have spent because of the existence of the 2011 Act. There should have been a general election when Mrs May lost the major plank of her electoral process when she invited the House of Commons to agree her deal, and she had a humiliating failure. She was turned down flat by the House of Commons, so there should then have been a general election. That is how our constitution is supposed to work, instead of which, we and the other place have been sitting in paralysed impotence doing nothing except arguing about whether we should argue again. Using constitutional devices in this way can, as I have said to the House before, come back to bite us. I know that of course all noble Lords cheer for their sides and that I am lucky not to have a side. I will not even have a vote in the next election any more than will any other noble Lord. But who in this House can honestly say that at the end of this election, we will not end up with a minority Government? That is a very serious possibility.
If it is a possibility, that paralysed Parliament will be governed by the five-year Fixed-term Parliaments Act and we will have the same Parliament until December 2024. There will be a way around it because we will find another device or we will repeat the device we have used this time, provided the minority Government can get a few people on side to push a majority through the House so that, at some stage which is convenient, it may come to an end. That is not the right way to legislate because it is wrong in principle. We should address the five-year Fixed-term Parliaments Act by amending it, repealing it or by doing something to it which means that it will not be in force until 2024. For me, this is a very serious reservation. We have found a way to tinker with the constitution. I welcome that because this shambles has to come to an end, but I do not welcome the fact that we have had to achieve it in this way.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but it is always slightly daunting as well. I believe that the House should expedite this business as simply and as quickly as it can. While I have much sympathy with giving the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds, that should be done with full due consideration and process at another time. Perhaps such a Bill could be introduced by the next Government. I also have sympathy with giving EU nationals the vote, but since that would be an example of the UK offering fuller and better rights than any current EU nation, it too would require proper scrutiny. Rushing it now would be inappropriate.
Whether a general election is the best way to take us out of our current impasse is certainly debatable. Whether doing so in December is good timing is, likewise, an interesting question. Will it tie us to another election in five years’ time? That question can surely be handled by the review of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2020 or, in view of the comments already made, rather more quickly. However, it is the way that has been decided by the elected Members of the other place and I am sure that it is not our place to stand in the way of such a decision.
We all recognise that there is an impasse; a way forward has to be found. I hope and pray that, somehow, an election will break this impasse. If, however, the outcome were a House of Commons without a clear majority for a way forward, those newly elected MPs will have to consider very carefully how they handle such a situation differently from the history of these past months. They must not repeat it, if that is what occurs. We cannot afford a repeat of such a period.
I hope we will pass the Bill as it stands today. I trust that there will then be a campaign from all sides that is about seeking the best for the nation and is conducted with care, thoughtfulness, kindness, respect and generosity, and not with vitriol or false representation of the other. Then, once we have a new Government, let us all look to rebuilding trust, relationships and harmony beyond the general election.
As we pray at the outset of every day in this place the prayer displayed in the corridor on the other side of the Chamber, I hope that,
“the result of all our counsels may be … the publick wealth, peace and tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same, in true Christian Love and Charity one towards another”.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I think we should all say “Amen” to that, in our hearts as well as with our lips, as we do every day.
I strongly agree with those who have already said that the Bill, having been passed in another place by a huge majority, should go very quickly through this place with no attempt to amend it. We are the unelected House and the elected House has expressed itself emphatically in favour; we should go along with that.
Having said that, I agree most strongly with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in what he said about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. We had quinquennial Parliaments before the Act came about, but we were able to shorten them in a number of circumstances, such as a defeat on the Queen’s Speech or the passing of a Motion of no confidence. We should go back to that condition. I hope that, whoever are in government after 12 December, they will make that an early priority and put it in the next Queen’s Speech. It would be serving Parliament to do so.
Like my noble friend the Leader of the House, I wish we were not here at the moment. I was one who supported the Theresa May deal from the word go, and I would have supported the Boris Johnson deal, even though, in some respects, I do not think it quite as good. I wish that, after the Second Reading vote and the majority of 30 last week, we could have allocated more time. We could have then gone to the country after Brexit had been done—some time towards the end of November, I suspect—and had an early spring election. Things would have been much smoother. On a party point, I say to colleagues on this side of the House that we would have also put our party in a much stronger position had we done so. But we have not, and we have this Bill.
There is one thing I really hope we will do, and it builds on the remarks made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. Our country has been torn apart; families and communities have been divided. We have to seek to come together and it would be no bad thing if the Conservative Party took a lead in this. Some of the servants of our party, who have collectively given decades of service, have had the Whip restored—they should all have had the Whip restored. I felt very sorry this morning when I learned that Amber Rudd, who announced that she would not seek re-election, had requested the Whip and had her request turned down. That is not acting in the spirit of generosity or magnanimity and I urge my noble and right honourable friends in the Government to think again. These are people who have given long and distinguished service. We owe them a great deal.
I fought my first election in 1964 in the neighbouring constituency to the Father of the House, Kenneth Clarke. He has rendered long, loyal, conspicuous service and that should be properly recognised. It is deeply unfortunate that it has not yet been so recognised. I very much hope that it will be.
I end with another plea to the Government. The last time that we had a general election, in 2017, we had the longest, most turgid manifesto in our party’s history. I think it was worse than the longest suicide note in history, which the party on the other side produced. Can we please all have, as a collective Christmas present, a short, emphatic manifesto, preferably on two sides of A4, but certainly not running to more than a couple of thousand words? That would also help the healing process. May it now begin.
Lord Puttnam (Lab)
My Lords, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I think that the most important issue in front of us is the restoration of trust between us and the electorate. I first declare an interest as chair of this House’s Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee. As such, with the date of the general election seemingly in place, it seems only right to ask the Minister how prepared he feels the country really is to hold a free and fair ballot. Surely this House will agree that nothing could be worse than a contested election result.
For a number of years, it has been clear that our election laws have failed to keep pace with technological change. As we are all aware as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal—and it was a scandal—messages can be placed online with no information about who paid for them, which candidate they support and why. It has become increasingly easy for campaigns to use microtargeted messages to fan the prejudices of individuals, safe in the knowledge that the wider electorate will not be aware of them.
The Government have promised that they will introduce proposals for imprints on all online political advertising, as is the case offline. The Government launched a consultation in July 2018, but have as yet failed to put forward any proposals. Earlier this year, they also committed to hold a consultation on measures to protect electoral integrity, including measures to increase transparency in political advertising. However, that also is yet to appear.
When the Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee questioned civil servants on when this consultation would take place, we were told that the decision was still sitting with Ministers. The sense of government inaction is incredibly worrying. The Electoral Commission put forward perfectly sensible recommendations for updating electoral law almost a year and a half ago, and the Government have yet to respond to them. The written submissions to our committee are all but unanimous in agreeing with the Electoral Commission’s suggestions that all political advertising should, first, come with an imprint, and secondly, be recorded in real time on publicly available databases so that the electorate can see the nature of claims being targeted at different audiences. There must be greater transparency. This failure to act risks undermining voters’ faith in democracy as a whole.
There is a real danger that, following the coming election, the losing side could plausibly claim the result to be illegitimate due to dark messaging having been used to subvert the democratic process. That in turn would undermine the legitimacy of whoever was elected—precisely the goal of every malign foreign actor wishing to influence the outcome of our elections.
The objective of dictators across the world is to spread the idea that democracy is a chaotic process that fails to lead to stable government. Government inaction in allowing this election to go ahead without the minimum recommendations of the Electoral Commission being in place can only help those foreign actors achieve their aims. There are enormous and unresolved questions over how digital technology should be regulated to ensure that, over time, it can support rather than undermine our form of representative democracy.
The immediate changes that need to be made are obvious, and have been for a good while. For too long the Government have failed to act, to a point at which there are entirely legitimate questions to be asked—and indeed answered. We cannot go into this election without the degree of transparency that the public deserve if we are to maintain trust in our democratic system. In “getting Brexit done”, we could all too easily inadvertently destroy long-term trust in British democracy itself.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, I shall follow the points that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has just made in a moment but, first, I want to deal with the specific timing of this election.
In the winter election of 1974, polling day was on 28 February. I paid my morning visit to the polling station for the scattered parish of Temple, in the wilds of Bodmin Moor, with snow and bitter winds developing. I asked the staff about turnout. They told me that 17 of the 18 on the electoral register had already voted. I asked whether I should collect the final voter. They said, “No, Mr Tyler. That would be difficult because he’s dead”. However, as he was still on the register, they had to stay there until 10 o’clock at night and could not go home, because that was how the law applied then.
The point I want to make is that even that very bad weather and the short amount of daylight produced an 83% turnout in that constituency, because the wise electors knew that it was going to be very close, and they were right. I had a majority of just nine votes, and the Liberals scored a post-war record of 19.8% of the GB share of the poll. The point is that it is not the weather or the time of year that is important; it is whether people feel that their votes will be important, valued and matter.
Indeed, the great reforming Liberal/Whig Government of Lord Grey were elected on 10 December 1832, so there is a good precedent.
Such is the present uncertainty and volatility of public opinion that there will clearly be very unpredictable local contests, and, as Professor Curtice has pointed out, there is a strong likelihood that no party will have a majority. It may be that our political system is at last catching up with public opinion. It is several decades since a majority of the electorate supported one political party, and they have long since departed from the bipolar, bilateral choice between the old parties. Therefore, every vote should count and should matter far more than in recent elections.
As my noble friend Lord Newby has already said, we would have preferred a people’s vote confirmatory referendum. Our MPs have urged this on no less than 17 occasions but they were thwarted by the vacillation and indecision of the Labour leadership.
Members of your Lordships’ House may recall that I convened a group comprised of colleagues from all parts of the House—cross-party and non-party—to supervise the drafting of legislation for a new referendum. We could have passed that legislation relatively quickly if we had used the very brief paving Bill that we drafted. That would have made it possible for the other, fuller Bill to correct the defects in the 2015-16 legislation without holding it up, and meanwhile the Electoral Commission could have undertaken the consultations that were required.
However, it was not to be. Both the then Conservative Ministers and the Labour leadership chose to ignore the growing clamour for the public to be given the final say, and the time wasted after January contributed to the collapse in support for their parties in May.
I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues would have preferred the public to complete this process, since they began it in 2016. We believe that it would have seemed more logical and more clear-cut, but we are realistic. As I have said before, there should have been a political will; then there surely could have been a parliamentary way. However, I accept the inevitability of this Bill and this election timetable.
As the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has just emphasised, Ministers have also said in recent months—to me and to others—that our electoral laws are not fit for purpose. The fallout from the Supreme Court judgment last year has not yet been properly addressed because the Electoral Commission’s excellent codes of practice have not been approved by Parliament. Similarly, the lack of effective regulation, reporting requirements and transparency of funding for online political messaging remains a potentially damaging omission. In our debate last Wednesday the noble Earl, Lord Howe, gave me specific assurances on this. Where are those assurances now?
Meanwhile, whatever the Prime Minister may now promise, this election is very unlikely to “get Brexit done”. With his deal there will still be many months, if not years, of complicated and significant negotiation. The public do not understand that; they have a nasty experience to look forward to. The only way to bring this to a halt is to stop Brexit— and that is what we Liberal Democrats will be inviting the public to vote for.
The Earl of Kinnoull (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who spoke with his usual energy—and colour; I say that while noting his tie. I will make only one substantive point, and that is about the speed of reappointment of all committees following the election. The European Union Committee is now scrutinising the withdrawal agreement, the political declaration and the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. Indeed, we have had two recent evidence sessions on those, and we are expecting to produce two outputs to inform the debate on the Bill, assuming that that will take place after the election.
The first output, the report on the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, is an update on our report of December last year, which was 60 pages long—and it is, I think, full of interesting stuff that the House would want to have. The second output I expect to be a letter that I shall write to the Leader of the House tomorrow about aspects of the withdrawal Bill concerning scrutiny.
Many other committees of the House are working hard on Brexit-related matters. I note that the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee are working particularly hard. All this work will pause on Dissolution. In 2010, after the election, it took seven weeks to reappoint the European Union Committee, and that was four weeks after the Queen’s Speech. In 2015 it took only five weeks to reappoint that committee. In 2017, admittedly, it took 19 days—but time is exceptionally short here, with the Christmas period and the necessity of including the processes for ratification in the European Parliament.
The issue of the speed of the reappointment of committees is common to all committees of this House. In the light of that, may I ask the Minister what comfort, speaking both as a Minister and as the Deputy Leader of the House, he can provide that there will be an expedited reappointment of all committees after the election, so that we can resume our work as soon as possible and continue apace?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
My Lords, for many of your Lordships there will be a “Brenda from Bristol” moment as we receive this Bill. However, I welcome it as a method of breaking the logjam. It gives the Prime Minister the opportunity to do what has until now been denied by Parliament both to him and to his predecessor, Theresa May, and to provide a means of delivering Brexit. Politics is a learning process, and recent history contains many useful lessons to us all, on whichever Benches we sit.
Despite Parliament’s best intentions, the referendum result pitted the people’s vote against many parliamentarians. Devised to unite Parliament and country, it ended up dividing them. It divided parties and it still does. This was the background against which I conducted my previous role in this House—a role in which I found myself trying to deal with the consequences of the Government’s rightful commitment to respect the leave vote in the referendum and deliver Brexit. Only to a degree was I successful but it became clear that, although this House learned to live with its differences of view, we failed to influence events in the other place. Regrettably, for a number of reasons, the House of Commons failed to provide the necessary forum where conflicts of views and interests are reconciled by debate and accommodation.
Some noble Lords may think me hopelessly idealistic about the parliamentary process, but we all come to this place driven by ideas and wish to get things done. I turn to the Spiritual Bench and am sorry that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham has gone, because I too went into the Not-Content Lobby and read the prayer that we have every day. In addition to the quotation that he read, I add the part that asks that we,
“lay aside all private interests, prejudices and partial affections”.
The ethos of Parliament lies in those words. If Parliament, and the House of Commons in particular, is to achieve its commitment to honour the referendum, it is surely right to accept that in passing this Bill the electorate have a right to be represented by a Commons that can get Brexit done. This Bill is part of that process.
The uncertainty over Brexit has meant that millions of families and businesses cannot plan for the future. This paralysis and stagnation cannot continue. It is not in the national interest. If we do not have an election, this Parliament will continue to delay and we will not be able to concentrate on the other things that matter to people. An election will return to Parliament a fresh mandate and the ability to deliver on things like the NHS, police numbers and increased funding into schools.
Meanwhile, despite successfully hindering the Government’s agreements, never in the hours of discussion has the House of Commons as it stands been able to agree on what it wants on Brexit. Do we remember those indicative votes? Now, however, after last week’s abortive attempts to pass agreements under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, it has passed this short Bill without amendment. We should do likewise.
Baroness Quin (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who has been such a popular and respected member of the Government and of your Lordships’ House. I also commend the words spoken by my noble friend Lord Puttnam, who raised a lot of important issues that I hope the Government and Parliament will fully consider.
I fully accept that when the House of Commons decides on an election, the unelected second Chamber cannot oppose or prevent that, although I was interested to look again at the work of Walter Bagehot, the great Victorian constitutionalist, who said:
“I answer that the House of Lords must yield whenever the opinion of the Commons is also the opinion of the nation”.
I am not sure that people out there are as keen on a pre-Christmas election as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seem to be. However, I assure my Whips that I am not advocating our blocking the Bill in this House, although I am sure that if I were still a Member of the Commons then I would have voted against Third Reading, as a number of Labour colleagues did yesterday.
I do not believe that an election is the best way to decide Brexit. There is a strong risk that we may well be back here after the election with further protracted proceedings as to the way forward. In that sense, I am very sorry that the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party came to the Prime Minister’s aid and gave way over this election.
Along with my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, I am appalled at the Prime Minister’s conduct of business since he took office. We had the illegal Prorogation and the charade of the Queen’s Speech, which I felt was close to a constitutional outrage, with a Government well short of a majority really embarking on an election broadcast rather than a realistic programme of government. Then, although the deal the Prime Minister had negotiated got through at Second Reading, the Government refused to allow it further consideration. That seems absolutely crazy. I pay tribute to those Members of Parliament, many of whom are my honourable friends, who have been trying honestly to do the best for their constituents and the country in this extremely difficult situation.
Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, I was amazed that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act could be overturned in such a speedy and cavalier way. The Liberal Democrats seem to be subverting an Act which I thought they were attached to, although it has to be said that it has not been very successful in recent years. Despite its existence, we are now facing the third general election in four years. None the less, I hope that constitutional experts in this House and the other place can assure me that this is not a precedent for lots of substantial legislation being overturned hastily at record speed. This would be particularly bad news for your Lordships’ House, whose undoubted strength lies in careful, detailed scrutiny.
I do not like referendums, but have come round to the view that if this process began with a referendum, then logically it should be completed with one. It seems very sad that, at the point that my own party made substantial movement in that direction, we now face an election rather than a confirmatory vote. It is also a great irony that, after all this time, my party seems to be the only one supporting such a referendum.
Elections are about a whole range of issues facing us and this Government may become painfully aware of this as the election campaign proceeds. My party has a number of policies that could prove very popular with those people who are reeling from austerity and inequality. We may well see that as the campaign progresses, just as we did in 2017. There was a turning point—I remember it well, campaigning on doorsteps—particularly after the then Prime Minister had announced her policy on social care. People suddenly became much more focused on domestic issues and she lost her majority as a result. We have had great difficulties ever since.
Finally, putting forward the idea of a confirmatory referendum on a deal versus remain, as Labour is doing, is actually the best way forward. I hope it will resolve the Brexit issue, which has sadly dominated our politics for far too long.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. With her experience and expertise, she has been a pleasure to work with on a cross-party basis in the last three years, although I cannot fully agree with all her remarks just now. I endorse her warm comments on the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, and thank him publicly for a kind note he recently sent me.
This general election will decide the future of our country for generations. It is an opportunity to build a fair, inclusive, liberal and internationalist Britain that will flourish inside the European Union, compared to an obsession with delivering a Brexit that will impose a huge hit on our economy and therefore jobs, and will affect the country in so many other ways. That this Conservative Government want to deliberately deliver a knock-out blow to our prosperity is dismaying, to put it mildly. As my party leader Jo Swinson said yesterday in the other place, people’s identities of remain or leave run deep, because this is about not only whether we remain in or leave the EU but who we are as a country. It is about our values and whether we are open, inclusive and internationalist in our outlook, facing the future, or closed and insular, wanting to pull up the drawbridge and look to the past. That is the key question that we as a country need to resolve.
The UK is in a mess and needs to be rescued. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, failed to meet his 31 October do or die, die in a ditch deadline to wrench the UK out of the EU. There was no early prospect of a referendum. The Prime Minister paused the withdrawal agreement Bill and there was still a risk that he would try cunningly to effect a crash out no deal, given his form since July and, indeed, for much longer.
The Liberal Democrats, with SNP support, decided that we had to take the initiative. I am proud of our role in unlocking this gridlock, in Parliament and over the Article 50 extension. Several commentators have confirmed that the Lib Dem/SNP initiative for an early election unblocked the hesitation in Brussels, and specifically in Paris, about an extension to 31 January. We would not have chosen to start from the 2016 referendum result, nor to arrive where we have, but there was an absence of full support from other parties for a people’s vote with the option to remain in the EU. The numbers for that in the Commons are simply not there.
I realise that some of our friends were taken aback. I was a bit myself, but the more I saw what was happening, or not happening, in the other place and with Brussels watching and waiting, the more I realised that our leader, Jo Swinson, had done exactly the right thing.
I could never get bored of listening to my leader, my noble friend Lord Newby, or to other colleagues, but it is true that he has made many speeches on Brexit, all of which contained a call for a people’s vote. That bears repeating often. Liberal Democrats want to stop Brexit, to get Brexit gone, so if we form a majority Government—anything could happen—we will have a mandate to revoke Article 50. If not, we will continue to campaign and press for a people’s vote, working across party, as we have since 2016, and with even greater intensity in recent months.
Many MPs, especially women, have been subject to hate speech, bullying, intimidation and worse. We all remember Jo Cox. The parties, of course, have to ensure that their own houses are in order. Ours is talking to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and to the Jo Cox Foundation about how best to do that, but could the Minister tell us what the Government and the police will do to give protective security to MPs and candidates?
Lastly, I thank the outgoing European Council President, Donald Tusk, for his friendship and support for the UK, and Michel Barnier for fairly and honourably conducting the Article 50 negotiations. It is not the fault of the European Commission or the EU 27 that we are in a gridlocked mess, but they, as well as we, will be glad to get out of it.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I shall not be following the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, with partisan remarks about Brexit. I will concentrate on the Bill before us. I shall not detain the House long because I am keen that the Bill should make rapid progress to the statute book.
We must rejoice that the other place has spoken in favour of something with a clarity not seen from that place for some considerable time. It voted overwhelmingly for the Bill at Third Reading yesterday and this House should be wary of disturbing that happy alignment. While your Lordships’ House has the power and the right to amend any Bill other than a money Bill, I hope noble Lords will not be tempted to break the spell and ask the other place to think again about any aspect of it. We will not enhance the standing of your Lordships’ House if we are seen to intervene in the calling of a general election that is desired, and indeed much needed, by the other place.
The Bill has a very narrow purpose. It is to allow a general election to take place on 12 December, and nothing else. It is not about wider issues, such as the definition of the franchise. I hope noble Lords will respect the Long Title and not seek to introduce amendments that go beyond the scope of the Bill. If they do, I hope that the excellent clerks in the Bill Office will be robust with them.
Lastly, I appeal to all noble Lords to be brief and efficient at all stages of this Bill. We should return it to the other place unchanged and as rapidly as possible. We must then let the country decide who should govern us, and thereby determine the future of Brexit.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, our image externally has not been enhanced, with some bemusement over how we have reached this point. Other noble Lords have underlined what is needed: reaching out, being magnanimous and healing wounds with those of differing Brexit persuasion. Mending differences and closing divides should be the order of the day.
I rise briefly with one or two personal reflections on what has been a traumatic process that has certainly taken its toll. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is not in his place, together with the respective shadow Front-Benchers who collectively have advocated their positions with effectiveness and good humour.
The debate in the UK has been domestic in nature. However, the EU side has, understandably, also stuck to its core principles, and I suspect has, on occasion, accommodated the United Kingdom. Future decision makers might wish to reflect on such contributions, remembering that Brexit should not be a winner-takes-all circumstance. This election will give the electorate the opportunity to express their preferences, but this is where I register my personal regret that the political class has been unable to deliver on Brexit. I accept that the Government have had no choice but to call the election, but it would have been preferable to determine the real will of the electorate in isolation from unrelated grievances.
Finally, there is one point that I wish to belabour. Amid all the talk of extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds and EU citizens, there has not been sufficient consideration of UK citizens living in the EU, who lose the right to vote in general elections after 15 years outside the UK. This group, among the most adversely affected by Brexit, will be anguished not to be able to vote in December, and that includes many thousands in Portugal, where I am resident, and elsewhere on the continent. That said, if I were to offer any suggestion to UK citizens living on the continent, it would be, “Go register with your local immigration authorities in order to spare yourself angst post Brexit”.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I cannot but agree with the noble Viscount about the failure of the political class over the past two years to resolve this issue. Nevertheless, I have severe reservations about the Bill and the context in which it is being put forward. I was hoping to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, which would have been interesting, as I have a couple of points on casting in political plays. Boris Johnson likes to portray himself as Winston Churchill but acts more like Oliver Cromwell, who noble Lords will recall was the last person to try to prorogue Parliament against its will. He needed an army to do it. I also recall Cromwell’s words in relation to the rump Parliament—
Lord Dobbs (Con)
I beg the noble Lord’s pardon for not being able—as he can hear—to precede him this afternoon. However, I remind him that outside Parliament there is a big statue to Oliver Cromwell. Is he implying that there will soon be statues to Boris as well?
Lord Whitty
I would be surprised if our successors agreed to that, but stranger things have happened. There might be a statue to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, before there is one to Boris Johnson.
My reservations are partly constitutional and partly concern the effectiveness of this election on Brexit. My first constitutional point has largely been covered by my noble friend Lord Puttnam. There is a real danger of our political process being corrupted by nefarious forces engaging in digital intervention. We know of various groups who intend to do so, and I have not even spoken to Moscow yet. There is a danger, therefore, of this being the first really seriously disputed election because of unlawful intervention.
My second constitutional point is the more profound one also made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I always had my doubts about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act but, in the end, I went along with it. Since then, however, we have had two elections within two years, and a more honest description of the Bill would be “Delete the title ‘Fixed-term Parliaments Act’ and substitute ‘Two-yearly Elections Act’”. That is where we are. When Oliver Cromwell spoke to the rump Parliament, it had been there a decade, if not more. This Parliament has sat for precisely one Session. It is not a precedent that I hope we follow. The House of Lords has a reputation for being the guardian of our constitution, and we should at least put down a marker that this should not be seen as a precedent for future Governments and Houses of Commons. We should look, perhaps in a broader constitutional convention, at the length of our parliamentary Sessions.
My political point relates to the designation of this election as a Brexit election, and the slogan that the Prime Minister is apparently likely to use: “Let’s get Brexit done”. We all know that it will do nothing of the sort. Even this stage of Brexit is not clear. Parliament has not yet fully debated the withdrawal agreement arrangements or the Northern Ireland protocol, or indeed the political declaration. The issues raised by businesses and citizens around the country about our future relationship, trading and security arrangements with Europe will not be resolved by this election; they will not be resolved by 31 January; and they stand a good chance of not being resolved at the end of the transition period. If the public are expecting Brexit to be resolved by this general election, or by returning Boris Johnson and his manifesto, they will be very sadly disappointed. That will not resolve the conflicts in our country—it will make them worse.
I am not sure of the best way to resolve them. My preferred solution—which, I recall, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, also proposed a few weeks ago—is to have a referendum and a general election on the same day. We would then know where the parties and individual candidates stood and, at the end of the election, you would know where the public stood. We are, however, not going down that road. We will be none the wiser about what Brexit will really bring us on the important issues that matter to citizens and businesses in this country on 12 or 13 December than we are today—or have been at any time in the past year.
I recognise that the Bill will go through. I regret that. I regret much of the past two years. I have a terrible foreboding that, if we are not careful, we will move into yet another area where statesmanship and leadership are absent from our Parliament. I shall deeply regret that.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I am truly delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on the very points that he underlined in his concluding remarks, which I will address shortly.
I make three brief points. First, my party, Plaid Cymru, does not believe that a general election is an appropriate mechanism for resolving the problems that the Government apparently see in delivering their Brexit policy. We do not quite understand why the Government abandoned the Brexit Bill, for which they secured a Second Reading only earlier this month and which could easily have been on the statute book by 31 January. If the Government at long last recognise what many of us have steadfastly argued, that the Brexit issue has to revert to the people before it is implemented, a confirmatory referendum is the appropriate device for that purpose, not a general election. As it is, all the other vital issues that should dominate a general election campaign—pensions, jobs, the health service, police and crime, education and taxation—will now be subservient to the blasted Brexit demands that will dominate the coming election and are throttling all the other matters that people have a right to expect all potential Governments to address comprehensively during the campaign.
Secondly, this leads me to ask whether the Government have some devious purpose in having an early general election. I believe that is the case. If we were to stick to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, we would have the next general election in June 2022, five years since the last one. I believe that it has dawned on the Government that the Brexit issue is, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, underlined, not going to go away. It is not going to disappear, and it is not going to be a quiet, tidy end, with the UK leaving the EU on the basis of the Government’s recent agreement with the European Union. All through 2020, the Brexit arguments will persist through the transition period. The Government will argue their case for a free trade agreement, but there is next to no chance of that being agreed by late 2020, so we will again in 12 months’ time be facing the danger of crashing out of the transition phase into a no-deal scenario. Even if transition is extended, the invidious search for a free trade area agreement could run into 2021 and even 2022—in other words, into the 2022 general election. That is what the Government recognise as the timebomb awaiting them just down the road and it is why they are cutting their losses and going for an election now. This is not fantasy scaremongering. The experience of Canada, whose free trade negotiations with the EU went on for year after year, is a warning to us all. That scenario for the next general election in 2022 is one that it is clear the Government just cannot countenance.
However, for whatever devious reason, we are having an election. My party, Plaid Cymru, will campaign unequivocally on a revoke mandate and will co-operate with other parties and candidates in Wales who are also committed to a revoke referendum to maximise the anti-Brexit presence in the next Parliament.
I remind this House that I was first elected for Plaid Cymru in the Caernarfon constituency in our last mid-winter election, in February 1974. Yes, it was dark; yes, it was wet; and, yes, it was very cold, but when the good people of Caernarfon saw dozens of young people committed to a cause, knocking three or even four times on their doors, they realised how much it meant to them and they swung to our cause. Let no one believe that today’s young generation is not equally committed. They will walk through rain, snow and darkness to turn every stone to achieve a Parliament which will, with the people’s consent, retrieve for Wales and for Britain a rightful place as part of Europe. That faith in the good sense of the younger generation to kick out this disastrous Government and seek a new relationship in these islands is what allows me to accept the challenge of an election on 12 December and to turn every stone to secure an outstanding outcome for Plaid Cymru, for Wales and for Britain.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, illustrate how deeply entrenched views are and how three and a half years’ debate has not made the slightest difference to them. I think that the country is just weary of this—nobody, I suspect, more so than the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who has done a fantastic job throughout the proceedings on these Bills.
Until recently, I did not want an election; I thought that we should deal with Brexit before moving on to other, more serious national matters, but recent events, the obduracy and intransigence of some of the parties to the Brexit arrangements, have made it inevitable. We must have a new House of Commons. The nation is weary of it and it has become deeply damaging in so many ways; we simply must start again.
I feel sure that your Lordships’ House will not stand in the way of this Bill and the general election. Having served in both Houses of Parliament, I am well aware of the delicate balance between the two. It is our job to revise and not to block. The Bill carried in the other place by 438 to 20 could not be clearer. During these many debates, I have warned that by blocking Brexit in this House we were not just damaging the nation’s future but putting in jeopardy our reputation and the future of your Lordships’ House. It remains to be seen just what the different party manifestos say about our future now.
The time has come to resolve so many issues and for each one of us to stand up and be counted. My personal belief is that, in Boris Johnson, we have someone who, in a few short weeks, has transformed the atmosphere in the country and shown his ability to be a truly great Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom. He has my total support in the enormous task that lies ahead to carry out the will of the people and lead the nation to a confident and bright future.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, like many noble Lords, I have sat through, or read the report of, many lengthy debates in your Lordships’ House about whether we remain in or leave the European Union. Hitherto, I have not made a direct intervention in the Chamber but, like many Members of this House and the British public at large, I have been utterly depressed by the inability of Members of the other place to provide the leadership, clarity of thought and good governance required to guide this country of ours through the turbulent times created by the outcome of the referendum in 2016. Worse than that, I have been further embarrassed by friends and colleagues in Europe and elsewhere who completely fail to see why a mature democracy such as ours has totally failed to meet the challenges that we set ourselves in June 2016. Therefore, if it is to be an early general election on 12 December that presents the opportunity to end this period of drift and embarrassment, I am totally in support of this Motion and hope that it passes through your Lordships’ House speedily and without further amendment.
As a Cross-Bench Member of this House, I quite properly express no public view on who should win the election, who should be Prime Minister after the election, nor indeed which party or parties should form the next Government, but I can properly state that my overriding priority for the next Government is that everything possible is done to preserve the unity of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Fifty years ago, I joined the British Army and swore an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, as the crowned head of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Much of my active service was spent combating those who sought to take Northern Ireland away from the United Kingdom by force. On Remembrance Sunday, which is coming up shortly, I will once again reflect on friends and comrades who gave their lives for that cause. When you have carried the remains of your company commander in a plastic bag away from a field in south Armagh, you do not change your opinion lightly. More recently in 2015, I campaigned publicly to keep Scotland within the union, attracting most welcome criticism on the Radio 4 “Today” programme from Alex Salmond himself. As for Wales, I am a quarter Welsh, so that speaks for itself.
We need this election and, in the popular vernacular, we need it now. We need it to resolve the Brexit issue and to restore good governance to this country but, above all, we need a Government totally committed to preserving the integrity of this United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Brexit may be important, but the territorial and constitutional integrity of this country is vital. In the language of military campaign planning, the maintenance of the integrity of this country is the centre of gravity. If we lose sight of that, we lose our identity, our purpose and our strength, and we risk diminishing ourselves at home and abroad.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)
My Lords, the point has been made, but I would like to put it in a slightly different way: I think it is scandalous that something called the Fixed-term Parliaments Act can be used in this way, where we have a Bill with a clause that more or less says that, notwithstanding the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, we will have an election right now and, by the way, does not say in Clause 2 “and hereby repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act”. That makes no sense. It was said right at the start of this debate by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that this was an extraordinary way to proceed.
Secondly, I would like to reflect on the same point that was made by my noble friend Lord Whitty. Unless one believes in miracles—most people do not—the idea that a general election will now help bridge the divide between the two halves of our split country is not credible. To bridge the divide, something substantive would need to be on the table: for example, that we would leave the EU but stay in the single market with an arrangement, which is not impossible because some of the EFTA countries do exactly that under the EEA; that we would carry on with the free movement of workers, perhaps with some change to the boundaries of that; and that we would keep to the dynamics of regulatory alignment for technical standards, which we need because Europe is the biggest economy in the world—bigger than the United States and bigger than China—and it is a single factory floor. Those of us who worked in the trade union movement and people in the Labour Party at the moment often make this point and are generally solidly, certainly in the private sector, in favour of staying in the EU. How can that come over in a general election when the big lie, in the era of Trump, not only will not bring the people together but increase the amount of anger.
Something has to change fundamentally. I think the man in the moon—or the woman in the moon—would say, “You have to find some substantive agreement in the middle, or this will lead to more and more cynicism”. This will already be an election based on doubling the level of cynicism of any previous one. There are the two money trees. One side says, “We will spend £500 billion on this”; no, we will not. The other side then says, “We will spend £600 billion on this”; well, jolly good. I know that in Brazil and Argentina elections are always like that, but since when are our elections like that? The best are being driven out in this way, in which the electorate are treated as lacking in intelligence. This destroys public trust and confidence. Those people who believe what is being said along these lines have to get up and keep on saying it.
By the way, with reference to the statue of Oliver Cromwell, I am one of those campaigning for a statue of Jo Cox to be put outside on College Green. Very few women are represented in the stonework around the Palace. As she was in campaigning mode—as I am now, as it were—she was murdered for doing that. Of course, she was very firmly committed to our staying in Europe, but it could have happened to either side. We need more recognition that this is how British politics should be. We should not be tearing ourselves apart, so we have to look to that outcome.
Finally, I would like to reflect on the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach. On this side, I add my thanks to him for his courtesy—not deserved by some of us—in the course of his time as Chief Whip. We should build on that sort of good will, as was called for by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support the Bill. Parliament is currently deadlocked; we need to break free from this political paralysis. The country—and above all, business—needs stability and certainty. By the way, to echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, I hope that the Bill sounds the death knell for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Above all, and this is the main point I want to make this afternoon, I hope that this election will restore confidence in representative parliamentary democracy. We had a Scottish referendum in 2014, a general election in 2015, a European referendum in 2016 and another general election in 2017. And the result? Paralysis, uncertainty and at times a very toxic political atmosphere. I see this election as a real opportunity to clear the air.
We have to understand that this election will not be a single-issue election. No election ever is or can be. It is voters who decide what an election is about, not the politicians. All of us who have trodden the streets and knocked on doors know that there are a thousand reasons and more why people vote for a particular party or candidate. For example, there will no doubt be some natural Labour supporters who will vote Lib Dem or Conservative just to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street—there may be quite a lot of them. There may also be strong remainers who will, in the end, vote Conservative because they want Boris Johnson to be Prime Minister. Only the voter knows why he or she voted the way they did; nobody else really does, and we should not pretend to know.
I say this because occasionally some noble Lords try to reinterpret an election result by saying, “I know that’s how people voted, but you know, they didn’t really vote for this to happen, or that to happen”. The only evidence of what people voted for will be the election result itself and the MPs who are elected. It is then the job of each Member of Parliament to honour their election promises and to represent the interests of their constituents: the voters will have delegated to their MP the responsibility for taking these complicated decisions. This is how effective parliamentary representative government works, and if that is what we want—and I believe it is—then it is goodbye to referendums. Please, no more referendums.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, five minutes is not a long time to speak, so I will not give a long history lesson, but I must observe that the history of winter elections is not very bright. The last one fought in December was fought by Stanley Baldwin, who lost. The last election fought on the question of who governs Britain was fought by Edward Heath and the answer was, “Well, we’re not sure, but definitely not you”. So the precedents are not that good. Even in 1910, the January and December elections produced stalemate; they did not move anything forward. None the less, I live in hope that this election will get it done, because we need to break the logjam.
In the referendum three-and-a-half years ago, it was argued that people did not know what they were voting for. That could be right: a lot was said and a lot passed under the bridge, but this time, no one can say that. Although I strongly believe in remain, I think the fact that Boris Johnson has made his position very clear is a good thing, because it means that when the result comes in, if he has won, he has a clear mandate for Brexit. I will not be arguing any longer for a referendum; I will say, he has put the matter to the people and he has won a majority for what he wanted to do. I call on all my colleagues to respect that. Similarly, if we get what I am going to call a coalition Government, they must be committed, in some way or another, to a confirmatory referendum. There has been a little too much point-scoring between the Lib Dems, the Labour Party and the SNP. They have to reach a common position, and part of that common position has to be what they will put back to the people and how long before it is done.
As many noble Lords will know, I have a dual role, doing some jobs in Brussels. The frustration there is about the inability of the political class in Britain to decide what it wants. If a coalition Government went back and said, “Look, we’re going to have a referendum”, it would have to be a referendum that led not to months of wrangling but to a clear decision. Either we are staying on the terms we had before, or we are leaving on the basis negotiated. We cannot carry on and on with this division.
I make one reflection. We hear a lot about stable government. For a long time, I have advocated proportional representation. I was always told that it would end stable government. My answer has always been that if you had PR, you would not have Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour Party and you might have a different leader of the Conservative Party. Yes, we would have to put up with the equivalent of Die Linke, the left in Germany, and the equivalent of the AfD. I remind your Lordships that the Norwegian first party and the Finnish now party, as right-wing parties, have played a more constructive role in government than they would have done as outliers within the main parties. I put it to your Lordships that part of the solution might still lie in a reformed electoral system.
Finally, picking up on something that my good friend, my noble friend Lord Cormack said—I first knew him when I was dealing with the trade unions—I deeply regret the treatment of, in particular, Ken Clarke, with whom I worked closely when the Conservatives were in opposition; even more so David Lidington, who became a personal friend and was, to my mind, probably our best Minister for Europe, widely respected and liked there and able to put an often difficult case across without alienating people; and finally, Patrick McLoughlin, one of the few working men who got on to the Conservative Front Bench and who played a distinctive role in keeping the party’s feet on the ground. They have been treated disgracefully, and it does our party no credit not to readmit them and put them up for membership of this House, which they have all justly earned through their service.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord’s celebration of proportional representation. I note his comments on German politics, although he did not note that the German Greens are currently in pole position to provide the next Chancellor—one impact of proportional representation.
I do not plan to use this speech as a party-political broadcast. Your Lordships’ House can judge who might or might not have chosen to use their speech for that purpose. I shall tell you why, were this to come to a vote—it is fairly clear that it will not—the Green group in this House would be voting against the Bill as it stands.
We would do that not because we think that this unelected House should not block the Bill. That is not the reason for our choice. It is interesting that so many of your Lordships have referred to that fact as a reason to support the Bill. That is a powerful argument for a modern, functional constitution with an elected upper House, for us to be in a position to make stronger judgments. Were this House to be sitting for longer, your Lordships could have seen the Bill that I tabled for that purpose.
I am not saying that we would vote against the Bill because, as Caroline Lucas said in the other place, a general election is just that—on general subjects. The sensible, logical, democratic way to solve the Brexit chaos is to give the people the final say, even though that is obviously a fact.
The reason we would vote against the Bill, were there to be a vote, is the huge number of barriers to a free and fair election on 12 December. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, made many references to the huge problems that we have with technological change and how our electoral laws have failed to keep pace with them. Lots of the things to which he referred would require complex legislation and changes, and we do not have time for that, but the Green group, following Caroline Lucas in the other place, proposed a small amendment to the Bill. We were told by the Public Bill Office that this would be out of scope of this Bill, but I will now read this on to the record, so noble Lords can see how simple, quick and easy it would have been.
The title is “unlimited fines for electoral offences”. It reads:
“The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) Order 2010 is amended as follows: schedule 1, paragraph 5, leave out ‘£20,000’ and insert ‘unlimited’”.
The Explanatory Statement says:
“The new clause would allow the Electoral Commission to impose unlimited fines for electoral offences”.
That reflects a request from the Electoral Commission, the independent arbiter, that was made to the Government in May 2018, 18 months ago. This would be a simple change. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, showed earlier, this House can act very rapidly and show its direction to the other place. It is a grave pity that we have not had the chance to do this here, now, with this proposed amendment.
The current £20,000 maximum fine is peanuts to many of the people who are able to buy the rest of the politics that we all get. An unlimited fine, which would allow the Electoral Commission to act in proportion to the level of the offence, is a simple change and would make the coming election, on 12 December, free and fair—a little freer and fairer anyway.
Finally, I will reflect on just how broken our politics is and how I fear this election is incapable of fixing it. On Christmas Day, it will be five months since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, should he still be Prime Minister then. Over that period, the House will have sat for less than one in five days. In those five months, the Prime Minister will have attended Prime Minister’s Questions three times. That record is unmatched by any Prime Minister in history and we all hope it will not be matched by any future Prime Minister. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggested that the next election will be in December 2024. That is very optimistic, under the circumstances. Our current politics is broken; we need far more changes. Let us all work towards them together.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, I have not spoken on anything to do with Brexit before, but I have listened to interminable speeches from Peers on all sides of the argument. I feel I know how noble Lords think. Yesterday, the elected House passed the Bill to this House, so I believe it is now the duty of all noble Lords in this unelected House to pass the Bill in its current form. Failure to do so would be intolerable and do long-term damage to this House.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, we need to learn from our experience. It seems to me self-evident that a House of Commons which has lost not only the respect but the confidence of the nation is something that needs to be replaced. I think that a House of Commons in which the Government no longer actually control the business is something that needs to be displaced. It is also self-evident, although I have no knowledge of the dynamics of what goes on in this House of Commons, that in any House of Commons the difficulty of securing a majority for a Dissolution, if a majority is required, increases with the number of people in that body who are likely to lose their jobs and their places. So when there is an urgent need to refresh the House of Commons and it is faced with a Bill which dramatically increases the majority needed until it cannot be reached, the only conclusion I can reach is the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, who I caught as I was going out, and certainly that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, which is that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is actually an anti-democratic piece of legislation and should be repealed swiftly. I am speaking now only in order to put on the record that I, and I think many others, would urge the incoming House of Commons to address this problem as quickly as possible.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, there has been a remarkable consensus around the House in this debate. My party would prefer a confirmatory referendum. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats in the Commons put down 17 amendments for a people’s vote and voted seven times on amendments to promote it. As my noble friend Lord Newby said earlier, we have come to the conclusion that the Commons lacks a majority for that. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said that the Labour Party is moving towards a confirmatory referendum, but there is a deadline—the third deadline. After two extensions, now to the end of next January, the member Governments of the European Union are beginning to lose patience with us and the question of whether we should have a further extension has been raised by several of them. Sadly, we cannot wait for the Labour Party’s position gradually and slowly to evolve further.
We would also have preferred the extension of the franchise to 16 year-olds and to EU citizens who are settled in this country, but we recognise that our electoral law is a collection of imperial and historical anomalies. Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in this country have the vote, while American and EU citizens who are long-term residents do not. These are important issues that we need to address, but in the next Parliament.
There has also been some discussion about the extent to which we are facing a constitutional crisis. A number of noble Lords do not like the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, but underneath that there are some large questions about the relationship between the Executive and Parliament. I note that our current Prime Minister, that wonderful democrat who was vigorously campaigning three years ago to restore parliamentary sovereignty from subjection, as he put it, to the European Union, was last week quoted as calling for the people—by which I think he meant himself as the proclaimed representative of the people —to be freed from their subjection to Parliament. That sort of language is part of our problem, as he follows the path of Cromwell from great parliamentarian to great authoritarian.
We have an unwritten constitution, which depended on honourable men accepting its conventions. I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, when answering a Question on the resignation of the then Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, on his ability to ignore the Ministerial Code in three different places by announcing, two days after resigning, that he was to become once again a highly paid columnist with the Daily Telegraph, said that, “There are no penalties for breaking the Ministerial Code. It depends upon honour”. Unfortunately, that is of course part of what we have been losing in our political life.
We have a crisis of our political system. We are supposed to have a two-party system in which, when the Government weaken, the Opposition are in a fit state to take over and become the Government instead. But what we now have are two entrenched parties, both deeply divided. We have suffered a long crisis of conservatism in the last 20 years, between one-nation conservatism and the libertarian free market right, with a Prime Minister now who pretends that he can somehow straddle the gap, as he uses inflammatory nationalist language at one point and then talks about the need for one-nation conservatism at another. The Labour Party is similarly split, between the centre left and radical socialism. We now know that single-party government does not provide strong and stable government. We perhaps need to begin adjust to a much more diverse electorate—in attitude and origin—and to multi-party politics and a stronger Parliament.
We need also to talk about the language and practice of politics. I ask the noble Earl, Lord Howe, when replying, to give us some assurances on this. The extent to which violent language has come into our politics in recent years is deeply damaging and one explanation why so many Members of Parliament are not standing again at the end of this Parliament. We know that our Prime Minister himself and the right-wing media have used inflammatory language. I find the demonisation of Dominic Grieve and Philip Hammond, for example, by senior official sources in No. 10 as well as by the right-wing media, to be deeply shocking. Here are senior members of the governing party being demonised by the person some now call “Demonic Cummings”. I hope the noble Earl will say that there are those within the Government who are very concerned to make sure that, in an election campaign, dialogue and respect for alternative opinions are maintained. What the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, called the “ethos of Parliament” also needs to be the ethos of democratic debate.
A number of noble Lords talked about digital campaigning and spending. We know that our electoral law is in much need of reform, but we are not going to get it. I therefore hope that the noble Earl will be able to say something about the care with which the Government will encourage the Electoral Commission to monitor behaviour throughout the coming campaign.
Responsible politicians are needed on all sides if we are to regain popular trust. I remind noble Lords that, if we come to a result in this election in which a number of parties are elected to Parliament and none has an overall majority, that will also require responsible behaviour after the election—co-operation among parties and politicians, and respect for those of different opinions.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, this is an unusual procedure for a Bill. A whole Bill, with far bigger consequences than the Benn Bill—which required only the sending of a letter—is to be taken in one day, at one sitting. And it has been done without a murmur from those—I am looking not just at the noble Lord, Lord True—who found the Benn Bill’s passage so very outrageous. By comparison, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act had one day at Second Reading, three days in Committee, two days on Report and a tiny 10-minute day at Third Reading: 29 hours in all.
Today’s Bill was conceived by the Liberal Democrats and then taken over by the Conservatives—the two parties that pushed through the very Fixed-term Parliaments Act that the Bill now upends for what they see as their own electoral advantages. The Act that they wanted, to prevent a Prime Minister calling an election whenever he or she felt like it, is to be cast aside so that this Prime Minister can call an election at a time of his choosing. Indeed, the Lib Dem Minister who took that Act through this House, resisted attempts to include a sunset clause, which, ironically, would have saved Mr Johnson a lot of trouble, as he could then simply have called the election whenever he wanted. That Minister also ignored the sage advice of our Constitution Committee, which, while unpersuaded of the need to overturn,
“an established constitutional practice and moving to fixed-term Parliaments”,
thought that there should be,
“some form of safety valve”,
to allow an early election.
I had hoped that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, might have spoken today to explain his volte face, because this Bill drives a coach and horses through the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, bypassing both the required supermajority as well as the unpleasantness of a no-confidence vote—“a political device”, in the words of noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, or “cavalier”, according to my noble friend Lady Quin.
Essentially, in 48 hours, between the two Houses, the Bill repeals the Act, with no forethought, debate or any of the consideration we would normally give to a major legislative and constitutional change. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, urged, we should undertake such a task in a proper and thoughtful way.
However, I guess this unconventional route is only one of the Liberal Democrats’ embarrassments, given that they have, in the words of an arch remainer, “thrown the referendum campaign under a bus”, having triggered the Bill before trying to add a referendum to the withdrawal agreement Bill. Indeed, they have promised that they will use any influence they have after the election to revoke without a second referendum. Those who slogged so long for a referendum must rue the day that they trusted the Liberal Democrats.
But that is not all. We and the Liberal Democrats had prioritised removing any chance of a no-deal exit from the EU. They have now handed this possibility to the Prime Minister. He may not get the WAB through Parliament before 31 January, given that we will now lose six weeks of legislative time with the election, swearing in, the Queen’s Speech and its debate—and I look forward to the answer from the noble Earl when he replies to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about the earliest date of our return. We now risk a crash-out at the end of January or at the end of next year, if the Prime Minister takes us out at the end of the transition period without an agreement. Well done, Liberal Democrats; I bet a glass is being raised to you in No. 10. As it happens, we are confident that there will be no such outcome, that it is Labour who will have the keys to No. 10, and we will put an end to a no-deal exit.
As for the Government—in case noble Lords thought that this was all about the Liberal Democrats—we know why they want an election. National debt is rising; the true figures of their preferred deal are appearing—£70 billion over 10 years, we hear today from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research; a winter NHS crisis beckons; schools are still on short measures in some places; Northern Ireland has been sold short, and Johnson rumbled on that; and, vitally, the impact of a hard Brexit has yet to be felt, or even the arguments over it, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, said.
So the Conservatives, for electoral advantage, which the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was meant to prevent, want an election while the fruits of their ham-fisted policies have yet to bite. I urge them not to be complacent. The public might just see through them and grasp why they are being sent out to polling stations in the run-up to Christmas. It is not really to “unclog” Parliament, the Commons having given the withdrawal agreement Bill a Second Reading. As my noble friend Lady Smith said, had there been a decent programme Motion, which needed only for the Prime Minister to swallow his pride over the totem 31 October date, he could have got the withdrawal agreement Bill through well before 31 January, and negotiations on our future relations with the EU could have begun.
Of course, the Government might feel complacent because they know that they may not be playing absolutely fair. Having an election before we have sorted out the regulation of targeted digital campaigning will probably play into the hands of a certain Dominic Cummings. I am not saying that it is the dark arts, but I know that it is neither transparent nor regulated, as my noble friend Lord Puttnam made abundantly clear. When he responds, the Minister needs to spell out what steps the Government and the Electoral Commission will take to ensure a fair and open contest.
For Labour, we look forward to being able to take our challenge to the Government to every street, village, town and city of the country. We will show what damage the Government are risking—to the car industry, to farming, to the environment, to consumers and to our vibrant service sector—with their approach to Brexit. We will highlight the impact that their policies have already had on the poor and disadvantaged, on those living with debt and insecurity, on those dependent on social services, on working families torn between jobs and paying for childcare, on students graduating with massive debt, on young couples no longer even able to dream of owning their own house, on people on zero-hours contracts, on the elderly finding it hard to see a GP or dentist any time soon, and on teachers and nurses who, at the end of the month, cannot find the money for any luxuries after years of pay restraint.
It will become clear over these coming weeks that the Prime Minister is not a man who can be trusted. He owes no loyalty even to his own MPs, let alone to society. He is a man with only one person’s future at heart, and that is his own.
I confess that I never wanted a winter election —I hate cold dark mornings and early sunsets—but I want the chance to rid this country of this Government. So here’s to this Bill—and the election that it now brings.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very constructive and focused debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to it. Unsurprisingly, we have heard a range of views expressed on all sides of the House about the Bill and the reasons why we find ourselves debating it, so I think that a helpful place for me to start is to return briefly to first base by re-emphasising the key points made earlier by my noble friend the Leader of the House.
Why do we believe that a general election is now necessary? The hung Parliament that we are in, complicated by the divergent views of elected Members across all parties on the most significant political and constitutional issue of our day, has created an impasse. It is an impasse that the Government are clear cannot be allowed to continue.
The withdrawal agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend Theresa May was rejected on three separate occasions earlier this year. The Prime Minister has successfully negotiated a new deal and the other place passed the revised withdrawal agreement Bill at Second Reading. However, by also voting down the Government’s programme Motion, they prevented the progress of that Bill and, hence, this country’s departure from the European Union by 31 October. Then, despite the extension of the Article 50 deadline, conversations held in another place made it apparent to the Government that there could be no certainty, or anything approaching certainty, of the withdrawal agreement Bill receiving parliamentary approval through all its subsequent stages. Therefore, contrary to the contention made by the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition, it was not rejection of the programme Motion that brought about this Bill; it was the Government’s realisation that even the three-month extension to 31 January left the fate of the Bill wide open.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said that she accepted that there should be a general election. I wish that she had done so with as much good grace as the noble Lord, Lord Newby. All the main political parties now agree that a general election is needed in order for the British people to have their say, and we earnestly hope to provide a new Parliament with a way forward. So this is a short and simple Bill, which sets the date of the election as 12 December. The general election timetable allows the Northern Ireland Budget Bill to pass before Dissolution, to ensure that the Northern Ireland Civil Service can access the funding it needs to deliver public services and proper governance in the Province.
The 12 December date is important for another reason: it is critical that we do not miss this opportunity to have an election, and a new Parliament sitting, before Christmas. An election on the following Thursday—19 December—would not allow time for the new Parliament to sit before the start of the new year. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, in his intervention, asked me for the earliest date on which Parliament could first sit following the poll. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has stated that if our party were to win the election, he would aim for both Houses to reconvene before 23 December. However, the exact date cannot be set until after Dissolution, when the Sovereign issues a proclamation, so I regret that I cannot more specific.
Lord Butler of Brockwell
I am grateful to the noble Earl for that, but surely the Queen cannot reopen Parliament before Christmas, on 23 December. That would be an absurd time to have a reopening of Parliament. Surely the answer is that the Queen cannot reopen Parliament until 6 January. We would then have a Queen’s Speech debate, so proceedings on the Bill are unlikely to start before the week beginning 13 January. We will then be getting into just as difficult a position, in passing the Bill before 31 January, as we were previously.
Earl Howe
I cannot agree entirely with the noble Lord. The House will have followed his train of thought, but it is nevertheless possible for Parliament to convene before Christmas for swearing in and so forth to take place, and we can get that part of things done. As I have said, I am not in a position to speculate in advance of the Sovereign’s proclamation the exact timetable following that.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
I think the House would like a bit more information. When the noble Earl says that the House could reconvene before 23 December, I think that most Members of your Lordships’ House, and indeed of the other place, would expect that some business would be undertaken. If the election were on 12 December, I see little reason why the House could not reconvene the following week. He will appreciate that legislation will be required before the end of January. Surely the Government do not intend not even to start tabling business until the middle of January.
Earl Howe
Before we have a new Government in place, it is certainly not in my gift to specify the date on which Parliament will return, or indeed what it will do when it does return. However, I am sure the noble Baroness, if and when she is elected to office, will see to it that there is a rapid reconvening of Parliament.
I listened with care, and a great deal of sympathy, to the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Whitty, on the critical issue of transparency in electoral campaigning. I also read the noble Lord’s article in the Times today. His criticisms of the Government are noted, but I hope he will accept that the Government are committed to increasing transparency in digital campaigning, to maintain a fair and proportionate democratic process. As both noble Lords will know, to this end, on 5 May the Government announced that we will implement an imprints regime for digital election material. The aim of that is precisely to ensure greater transparency, and to make it clearer to the electorate who has produced and promoted online political material.
Lord Tyler
We had some exchanges on this point last Wednesday, and as the Minister has now repeated to your Lordships, that commitment was given as long ago as May. What exactly is he proposing should now take place to ensure that those very urgent controls are implemented before the poll takes place?
Earl Howe
I understand the noble Lord’s impatience for moving faster in this area but I am sure he would acknowledge that nothing would be worse than getting this wrong. If we were to proceed in haste, we could find ourselves either unintentionally stifling democratic debate with overly restrictive regulations or rushing through a regime that would mean people were unknowingly committing an offence, and we would not want that either. It is a much more complex area of the law to get right than it may at first appear.
Lord Puttnam
I thank the noble Earl for giving way. All I am trying to get at is that nothing could be worse than a contested election result, and the rules that we are applying at present make that almost inevitable. If it is a very close election, as I suspect it will be, it does not matter which party wins; it will be contested. Given the fragile state of our democracy at the moment, I cannot think of a worse outcome.
Earl Howe
I understand the noble Lord’s concern, and I am sorry that it has not proved possible to enact the measures that I am sure we all want. However, I reconfirm the commitment that the Government have given that, if re-elected, we will bring forward detailed proposals on the scope of the new regime in the coming months for further scrutiny.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, spoke in her clear and emphatic way in favour of strengthening the powers of the Electoral Commission. I hope she knows that the Government work closely with the Electoral Commission to protect the integrity, security and effectiveness of referendums and elections. The commission has civil sanctioning powers that apply to referendums and elections. More serious criminal matters can be, and are, referred to the police and then considered by a court of law. The courts already have the power to levy unlimited fines.
However, it is important to remember that the commission is independent of the Government and accountable to Parliament through the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. Quite rightly, the Government are not involved in the decisions over what the Electoral Commission investigates or the fines that it may impose. The commission has recommended that its sanctioning powers be increased, and the Government are considering that proposal. The amendment that the noble Baroness spoke to would involve giving the Electoral Commission fining powers far beyond those of most other civil regulators. My own view, and that of the Government, is that that would not be proportionate. Even the Electoral Commission has not suggested having unlimited fining powers. Instead it has suggested that fines should be raised to hundreds of thousands of pounds so that it can punish and deter the most serious offences.
More broadly, as the noble Baroness herself said, changes to electoral law cannot be made overnight. They require extensive stakeholder engagement to ensure that they are workable and proportionate. Political parties vary considerably in size and professionalism, and it is important to ensure that their regulation is fair and proportionate so as not to undermine local democracy or discourage engagement.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, called for the rapid reappointment of your Lordships’ Select Committees following the convening of the new Parliament, and I recognise the importance of the issue that he has raised. The reappointment to our Select Committees is of course a matter for the Committee of Selection. They are usually reappointed early in any new Session, and I am sure the usual channels will do everything that they can to help to make that happen. Ultimately, though, these reappointments are not a matter for the Government.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, spoke powerfully about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and the need for Parliament to reconsider its provisions, and my noble friend Lord Elton added weight to those comments. I am grateful to both of them for what they said. These are serious matters that deserve appropriate consideration. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act provides that the Prime Minister must make arrangements in 2020 for a committee to carry out a review of the operation of the Act. The new Government will be bound to instigate that review and consider its outcome very carefully.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, expressed concerns about the possible tone of the forthcoming election campaign and discussed the need to prevent candidate intimidation and maintain respectful debate across the country. Democracy is a cornerstone of British values and the key to a healthy democracy is having respectful, vibrant and open debate. However, this freedom can never be an excuse to cause harm or spread hatred. A line is crossed when disagreement mutates into intimidation, violence or abuse. The Government recognise that rising levels of intimidation in public life can prevent talented people standing for public office, particularly women and those from minority backgrounds. That is why we are taking action to confront it and will continue to do so if re-elected to government.
The purpose of the Bill is to allow the British people to have their say and to give the other place the mandate to resolve this deadlock and sufficient time to act before 31 January 2020. This is our last opportunity to hold an election in a timely way before that date—an election that has significant cross-party support in the other place. I am sure your Lordships will ensure the swift passage of this vital Bill and enable an election on 12 December.
Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Wednesday 30th October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Rogan) (UUP)
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to the Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. With the agreement of the Committee, I will now report the Bill to the House without amendment.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s debate for their work to ensure the swift passage of the Bill. I wish you all a very happy evening. I beg to move.
Royal Assent
Thursday 31st October 2019
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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