Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Of course, but I will not look for you to join us in the Division Lobby, Mr Hoyle.

The Government might say in their charming, elegant and smooth way that this is a hypothetical situation because the honest truth is that in all normal circumstances no Government and no Prime Minister would ever choose to circumvent the power of the House on the two thirds majority that would be needed to call an early general election by enforcing a motion of no confidence. I echo the words of the Clerk of the House in a memorandum on the Bill to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform: there may be little risk of an accident if one drives up the motorway on the wrong side of the road at 4 o’clock in the morning, but the impact if there were an accident is likely to be very serious, and so although the risk of a dispute about a vote to dissolve Parliament being argued out in the courts might be small if it were to happen, its impact politically and constitutionally would be very great. That is why I say to the Government that although I understand how they have ended up with this legislation—it is not that I detest every element of it, although I dislike the process and I dislike the use of the period of five years instead of four and so on—and although I think there are elements of the clause that are right and proper, I think that they have not thought through the full possible consequences of the legislation.

I can easily foresee a time when a Prime Minister who is desperate to have a general election because of war, an immense financial collapse or something else that he thought was of absolute centrality to the Government that he—

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Or she.

[Chris Bryant]

Or she. I thought I just heard my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) speaking in my ear.

If that Prime Minister felt that it was essential in the interests of the nation that there should be an early general election, the Government would be prepared to bypass and use every trick in the book to secure an early election. They might well have this Bill in their back pocket as a means of achieving that. So although this Government were supposedly trying to release the grip of the Executive, they would have enhanced it.

I want to reaffirm our commitment to fixed-term Parliaments. That means that we have to lay down in statute that it is for the House, not the Prime Minister, to dissolve Parliament. It should also be for the House to decide the precise date of the general election, which should be in statute, and we should have only one process of calling an early general election. We must be clear that the Government need always retain the confidence of the House of Commons and that should be written in statute now.

For most of the 20th century, we have had very few hung Parliaments, but I suspect that there might well be more in future. We need to ensure that our provisions will stand the test of time rather than simply being drawn up to appease the coalition agreement.