Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Falconer of Thoroton Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this has been an extremely good debate. If I may respectfully say so, the opening speech from the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said almost everything that could be said and I support everything that he has said in relation to this.

We support this amendment because we think the Bill is a bad Bill. We respect the right of the coalition, because of the relationship between the Commons and the Lords, to have what they wish—which is a Parliament that ends on 15 May 2015—but if you analyse the detail, this Bill damages rather than improves the constitution. Mindful of our obligation to respect the primacy of the Commons, we suggest that we give the Commons what they wish but do not affect the constitution further than is necessary. Before I come to the detail of that argument, I will just get rid of some of the truly appalling points that have been taken against the amendment.

First, I turn to the point that the provision is badly drafted. It was drafted by the noble Lords, Lord Pannick, Lord Butler of Brockwell, and Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd. I do not think you could have a more powerful team in relation to this. What the amendment says—and it says it incredibly clearly—is:

“The polling day for the next parliamentary general election after the passing of this Act is to be 7 May 2015”.

It then says,

“If, but only if, a resolution to this effect”,

is passed, then the next one will be five years after that, and if a resolution is not passed, the other provisions do not apply. It could not be clearer. Please ignore all false remarks made in the other place. With respect to the noble and learned Lord, there is nothing wrong with the drafting of this.

The second point that has been made is that it is suggested there is something unconstitutional about this provision. First, it is said a sunset clause is inappropriate. We know that there have been sunset clauses in what may be described as constitutional Bills, for example the EU Bill and the control order Bills. The idea that a sunset clause in a constitutional Bill is inappropriate has been rejected by this House on a number of occasions and accepted by the other place.

The third particularly bad argument is that the provision increases the power of this place by allowing it to defeat orders. Yes, we can defeat orders, and the Parliament Act does not apply, but we always behave responsibly, and I would expect us to behave responsibly should the Commons indicate after the next general election that they want to have a fixed-term Parliament. If, however, that was the objection to this provision, then speaking for myself I would readily agree to an amendment to deal with that.

The final particularly appalling technical argument that has been advanced is that this is contrary to the Salisbury/Addison convention. I have never heard this being said until this afternoon. The Salisbury/Addison convention effectively says if the electorate have indicated it supports something this House should not resist it. I do not know if Members remember the election in 2010, but the one thing I can tell you, and it pains me to say it, is the one party that unquestionably lost the election was the Labour Party. Yes, a fixed-term Parliament was in our manifesto, but the public appeared very unattracted to it, so I do not think the Salisbury/Addison convention can be relied on by anybody remotely sane.

We know why this has been put in because we have had the privilege and the pleasure of Mr David Laws’s book, which was read many times on the Floor of this House during debates. Noble Lords will recall that Mr David Laws, who happily for this House was present during negotiations, gave us an account of how we got the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. It is lovely to hear the highly principled noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the splendid noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—neither of whom were there and neither was I—but have I got news for you. It was not on the basis of a desire to change the constitution; it was because the Tories and the Liberal Democrats did not trust each other to hold on to the convention. As David Laws explained, that is why they said that there had to be a Bill.

I respect the decency of the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord to whom I have referred but that was not the reason given by David Laws for why this has been done. It is because of the coalition agreement. I could not put it better than Mr Shepherd, the Member for “somewhere”. He is facing a House of Commons laughingly about to pass this Fixed-term Parliaments Bill without the sunset clause. He says:

“I hope that this cheerful Chamber will look askance at the Minister and his colleague, the Deputy Leader of the House, who are sitting on the Front Bench and trying to seduce us into thinking that there is some immaculate constitutional conception behind the Bill. There is not. It is the raw politics of ‘We want to be there for five years, in the hope that something turns up at the end of the fifth year’. That is what it is about, and we know it. I urge the House to vote for the Lords amendment, and damn them”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/11; col. 378.]

I do not think he meant damn the Lords; I think he meant damn the coalition.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, also recall that during the very same debate Richard Shepherd said that,

“the Lords make the absurd proposition that it should have a role, as an unelected House, in determining when an election should be”?

He also described these proposals as,

“ridiculous proposals from the House of Lords … the body of the House … feels that this is almost an impertinence”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/11; col. 377-78.]

Those were the context of his remarks last week.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I recall that but he voted in favour of the amendment. So I think you can say where his heart lay in relation to this.

Moving away from the technical points to the point of this Bill, let us think about history for a moment. In 1924, the Labour Government were defeated in a vote because the Labour Prime Minister had interfered with the Attorney-General in the exercise of his discretion. The moment he was defeated on the Floor of the House of Commons, there was a general election and the Conservative Party was returned to power. Imagine if Mr Ramsay MacDonald had been faced with the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill in 1924: first, being defeated on the proposition that he had interfered with the Attorney-General would not have led to a general election. There would had to have been a vote of no confidence put down by the Opposition. Let us assume that that had passed but that would not have been the end of it. Mr Ramsay MacDonald would then have had 14 days to try to cobble together a bit of support. Let us remember that he had a small majority in relation to this. He could have tried to survive on that basis. Is it seriously being said that that sort of behaviour would have led to the public having more confidence in the Government?

Moving forward in time to 1974, Mr Edward Heath perfectly legitimately wanted to test who governed the country because the country was in a major crisis in relation to the miners’ strike. Despite the fact that he legitimately wanted to go to the country, he could not have gone because he would not have been allowed to under this Bill unless he had tabled a vote of no confidence in his own Government. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who said that perhaps he could have done that. But what would people think of a Government who put down a Motion of no confidence in themselves?

Finally, the father of my noble friend Lady Jay in 1979 was defeated in a vote of confidence on the Floor of the House of Commons. The most quoted extract from political history in the course of this debate was what Mr James Callaghan said when he was defeated. He said, “I have been defeated in the House of Commons. I must now take my argument to the people”. After this Bill has been passed he would have to say, “Now that I have been defeated on a vote of no confidence, I must see if I can scrabble together a majority to stay in power because this beastly Act gives me 14 days in which to try to do it”.

Okay, I say to the coalition, have your miserable Act so that you can stick together until 5 May 2015, because we respect your right to force that upon us. However, there is nothing unconstitutional in saying that it is appropriate for this House to stick with the principle that says, after that, let the next Parliament decide whether it wants to continue with what I say is a terrible Act. We will support the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, in his excellent sunset clause.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, once again on this subject, we have had a very full and interesting debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have made important contributions to it.

It is clear that a number of noble Lords who spoke in the debate approached the amendment on the basis of whether they supported fixed-term Parliaments. My noble friend Lady Stowell and my noble friend Lord Dobbs gave compelling reasons why they believe in fixed-term Parliaments, whereas the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, departing from his party’s manifesto at the last election, indicated that he is now not quite so sure about them. When the House was debating whether the fixed term should be four or five years and the noble and learned Lord was asked whether, if five years was passed rather than four, a future Labour Government would try to bring it back to four, I remember his not being able to give an answer. If this Bill is passed and the amendment which we are currently debating is not included, I cannot see a future Government trying to repeal it either.

Back in 1992, as my noble friend Lord Rennard reminded us, fixed-term Parliaments was a policy of the Labour Party on which it fought the election; it is a policy which my party has espoused for many years; and it is a policy of the coalition. The argument that the legislation was meant to last only until 5 May 2015 is nonsense. The coalition agreement makes a clear commitment to legislate for fixed-term Parliaments in the future. The title of the Bill refers to fixed-term Parliaments in the plural, so it was never intended simply to be a fix for the current Parliament. Many of the arguments brought forward, particularly when we were debating four or five years, related to the ability to plan government business over a period of time. Whether one could test the feasibility of that in this first Parliament, when we do not have the Bill on the statute book, is doubtful.

I want to put to rest the idea that the Bill was meant to be for only one Parliament. It is very clear in the coalition agreement that it was intended for future Parliaments, subject crucially to the fact that no Parliament can bind its successor, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said. The important point here is that if a Parliament cannot bind its successor and future Parliaments do not want fixed-term Parliaments, they should bring forward legislation. That would be the proper way of scrutinising whether the fixed-term Parliament has worked. As things stand with this amendment, no resolution whatever would be required if one did not wish to continue with fixed-term Parliaments. There would be no post-legislative scrutiny, no opportunity to consider whether the idea had delivered what those of us who support it claim it would. If one had to bring forward a Bill repealing the legislation, it would provide ample opportunity to debate the pros and cons.

I say with all due respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, that the idea that, somehow, Acts of Parliament should be suspended or ended at Dissolution and that, if you wanted to continue them into a future Parliament, you should bring back a new Bill to do it, rather than what we have thought for years, which is that if you wish to repeal an Act of Parliament you do so by primary legislation, was a very novel constitutional proposal which I certainly would not like to argue before the Constitution Committee if it became an act of faith.