Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Mark Durkan and Dan Byles

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but let us remember that the Speaker can issue two types of certificate—under clause 2(2), which relates to confidence motions, and under clause 2(1), in respect of a resolution passed by two thirds of Members—and my amendments deal only with those circumstances. If we legislate for a resolution to be passed by two thirds of Members and for the Speaker to certify certain things about that, it would be a gross oversight not to provide for hon. Members, in so voting in such a Division, to specify a date if they wished to do so, rather than to leave that up to the Prime Minister.

I do not wish to go into the constitutional twilight zone that the hon. Member for Rhondda took us into about some of the wily vagaries of prorogation powers, but if we simply leave it to a Minister, even the Prime Minister, to set a date and make no provision for the House to specify a date, we leave ourselves open to possible uncertainties and, indeed, abuses. I remind the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) that we have served in an Assembly where a Secretary of State had certain powers and obligations for setting election dates. There have been court cases about whether or not the Secretary of State had duly exercised those powers and whether he had chosen not to see things and then said that he had exercised the power to set a date by simply setting the same date that had been suggested. People have used the different devices that the law allowed.

I am simply saying that if we charge the House with the possibility of setting a different election date for its own good reasons—I assume that they would need to be good reasons if the motion was supported by two thirds of Members—we should at least allow the House to specify the date as well if we are to hold to the spirit of the Prime Minister giving up powers.

Like other hon. Members, I have serious reservations about Speaker’s certificates. My amendments would not suspend any of the qualifications that I and many other hon. Members have on that subject—the worries about the implications in terms of courts and so on—but the more that we charge the House with powers and controls in relation to the issue, the more content I would be with the Bill.

[Dan Byles]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important discussion. The entire issue of fixed-term Parliaments, sadly, is in danger of becoming yet another political football to be kicked around the House, as Members seek to manufacture objections to reform, and to posture and grandstand. I fear that the new clause and amendments for the most part would not add to the Bill in any meaningful way. The issue is really very simple. I believe that the Bill will strengthen the power of the House over a key constitutional issue and diminish the Prime Minister’s power.

Before coming to the detail of the new clause and amendments, let us remember exactly what this historic Bill is about. Previously, the Prime Minister had the power to ask for an early Dissolution of Parliament at any time. Historically, that extraordinary degree of power has been used solely to the political advantage of the party in power.