Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

But the pact was not with the Conservative party. Sadly, in some ways, the Labour party is far less ruthless than the Conservative party when it comes to worrying about its own survival. I am happy to discuss the details and the highways and byways of the Lib-Lab pact, because I worked as a special adviser, as they were pompously called and, I think, still are, to the great Peter Shore at the time—and necessary it was, too. In those days, at least the Liberals had some sense of which side they were on, but they have abandoned even that idea since.

I shall speak specifically to amendment 4 in the name of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which would delete clause 2(1)(c), the measure providing the two-thirds trigger for a Dissolution. The hon. Lady made a slip of the tongue that, as often with such slips, held a revealing truth. She talked of a motion of “no consequences”, rather than a motion of no confidence, and, apart from the fact that I object to the idea of special majorities in the House, it seems to me that the trigger is wholly redundant, unnecessary and, indeed, offends the role of the House in holding the Executive to account. Now that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have had to abandon the completely naked idea of a 55% trigger, which would have enabled the most extraordinary circumstances to arise, they should abandon the provision before us, including the two-thirds trigger, altogether.

The provision was included in the Bill as a copy-out from sections 3 and 46 of the Scotland Act 1998. The Deputy Prime Minister first tried to make up the arguments for the measure on the hoof, and somebody pointed out to him that such a trigger existed in the 1998 Act. He suggested that it was a completely rigid trigger, and that the only way in which an election for the Scottish Parliament could be called was by a two-thirds majority of every MSP. Closer examination of sections 3 and 46 of the 1998 Act shows that that is simply not the case, however.

Section 3 does, indeed, provide for an early election if

“two-thirds of the total number”

of MSPs vote for one or, as subsection (1)(b) goes on to state, if

“any period during which the Parliament is required…to nominate one of its members…as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made.”

Under section 46, the First Minister’s nomination is by a simple majority. If it transpires that nobody in the Scottish Parliament can command a simple majority—in other words that no confidence in either party is declared and the Government in Scotland cannot continue—there is by virtue of that fact an election, and that is entirely right.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, and I want to push him on the points that he is making. The possibility of a no-confidence vote still exists in the Bill, and if a Government could not be formed in 14 days we would go to a general election. Would he prefer the power to call a general election to remain solely in the gift of the Prime Minister or in the gift of this House?

[Mr Straw]

I am in favour of a fixed-term Parliament, although I would have wished it to be four years. So, too, did the Liberal Democrats wish it to be four years. Indeed, they spelled that out in a document dated 10 May 2010 headed “Recovery and Renewal”, which contained their proposals in the coalition talks for what became the coalition agreement. I am indebted not to the department of open government in the Liberal Democrat headquarters for providing wider sight of this, because whatever they think about the Freedom of Information Act 2000, they certainly do not apply it to themselves, but to the New Statesman and its website. For greater accuracy, however, I have a copy here. It says:

“Immediate legislation to…set the date of the next election for June 2014, and establish”—