Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Report

Clause 2: Revival of prerogative powers to dissolve Parliament and to call a new Parliament

Amendment 1

1: Clause 2, page 1, line 9, at end insert— “(1A) The powers referred to in subsection (1) shall not be exercised unless the House of Commons passes a motion in the form set out in subsection (1B).(1B) The form of motion for the purposes of subsection (1A) is “that this present Parliament will be dissolved.””

My Lords, in the recent Committee debate I undertook to reread Hansard because I particularly wanted to address the views expressed by those who disagreed with this amendment. I have done so. I continue to respect those views but I do not share them. I am going to urge the House that understandable reasons should give way to compelling ones.

The arguments focused largely on the merits or demerits of the amendment, but in a sense what we were discussing does not really matter because, as I hope I made clear in my reply to the debate, it is obviously not for this House to decide the issue; it is for the other place to do so. It is a decision for the elected Chamber, and we are not elected.

The purpose of the amendment is simple: the objective is to offer the other place an opportunity to reflect again on this hugely important constitutional Bill and see whether it may have second thoughts. If the second thoughts lead the other place to the same view, so be it: that will be its view, and we must accept the view of the elected Chamber. However, I intend to abide by whatever decision is made by it after what I hope may be a fuller consideration of the merits or demerits of the arguments both ways—much fuller than it was, given the somewhat peremptory way in which this entire Bill was dealt with.

We have become habituated—have we not?—to the steady, apparently unstoppable accumulation of power in No. 10 Downing Street, and we have done so while simultaneously the authority and weight of Parliament itself, and the House of Commons in particular, have been diminishing. It is astonishing to think that we are now proposing to resurrect the medieval concept of the prerogative, the concept on which the divine right of kings was based. King James, and King Charles just across the road, will be laughing as they turn in their graves. The king lost his head in part because he kept dissolving Parliament.

I wonder whether any noble Lords heard Oliver Cromwell thinking of stepping off his plinth outside; I thought I heard a movement or two, but he has gone back. Cromwell, having been a great parliamentarian, decided that Parliament was not doing what he wanted, so Parliament was “purged”—an interesting thought and an interesting use of words. At that stage in our history, Parliament had obtained, through the Long Parliament, the right to dissolve Parliament. Cromwell did not dissolve it because he did not have the power to do so; he simply purged it. What are we doing resurrecting an ancient power in the 21st century?

My concern is this. This amendment is about the ultimate source of power in our constitution, today and probably for the next 50 years. Where does it rest, is the question we were asking? But the real question is where should it rest? We are enacting a statute, and whether the prerogative is being revived or not, the statute will govern whatever it is that governs our processes. I ask the question again: where should this ultimate power of dissolution rest? Before the prerogative is revived, surely we must take time just to be certain that reviving the old way is the best way.

There are understandable arguments about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which made Parliament indissoluble—I hope that is the right word—or not subject to Dissolution, without a two-thirds majority. This amendment proposes that it be a bare majority of those Members of the House who vote. The Act itself was tested to destruction during the Brexit shambles. I understand the argument that there should be an Executive control and that it is necessary for efficient government, but is this really the best we can do in 2022?

Whatever the position was in 1950, the idea that the sovereign can, in response to the Prime Minister who advises or requests—what a wonderful argument that has been—a Dissolution, refuse it, is completely inconceivable; it is beyond the fairies. We cannot have the monarch turning down the elected Prime Minister’s request for Dissolution without becoming utterly enmeshed in party politics.

As to the courts, I strongly believe, as a former judge, that this has nothing to do with the courts. The courts should not and do not have any jurisdiction to interfere with proceedings in Parliament. Article 9 remains firmly in its place and is surely an encouragement to us to allow the issue to be resolved by the other place.

There is something more profound. Should not the voice of the elected Chamber be heard? We live in a modern democracy: why should it not be heard? Why should it be compelled into silence on the very issue of its own existence? Why should not a simple majority of those Members of the other place who choose to vote be regarded as worth having as some curb on a Dissolution power that would otherwise be put in the hands of a single individual who happens, for the time being, to be our Prime Minister? Why should so much power be restored to our Prime Minister, whoever he or she may be? He or she, whether for political advantage or otherwise—and largely, of course, it will be for political advantage—but in truth on a whim, would be vested with the constitutional authority to override, or threaten to override, a point to which I will come back, every single vote cast in the last general election by a single vote of their own. For a modern democracy, that does not sound very wise, does it?

I repeat that the modest purpose of this proposal is merely to send this fundamental constitutional issue back to the other place for time to be given there for a further and mature reflection on the merits or the demerits of the amendment. That is all I am asking. I should have pursued this amendment anyway, but since the other place finished its discussion, I want to raise it as a somewhat alarming event.

I made it clear in Committee that this was not about the current Prime Minister and his troubles. I raised the issue in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, when he was riding pretty comfortably high in the polls. But a few days ago, after members of his own party expressed dismay at current events, the then Leader of the House threatened them with a general election to bring them into line.

I have based what I regard as a very distasteful suggestion to have to make on the words actually spoken by the leader, and the careful and, as far as I have been able to ascertain, unchallenged analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, in the Times last week. He refers to the Leader of the House’s actual language, when he said:

“my view is the change of leader requires a general election”—

we all know what that is about. The noble Lord’s observation was:

“The motive for this statement was transparent … The motive was to frighten rebellious MPs with the prospect of losing their seats in an ill-timed election.”