Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Second Reading

Moved by

That the Bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, I am pleased to open the Second Reading debate. While this Government did not want an election, this Parliament has not been able to agree a way forward on the major political issue facing the country. The purpose of this Bill is to allow the public to have their say and to give the other place the mandate to resolve this deadlock.

Earlier this year, the other place voted three times on the withdrawal agreement negotiated by my right honourable friend Theresa May and, on each occasion, rejected it. Subsequent cross-party talks to seek a compromise also failed to agree a way forward. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister negotiated a new Brexit deal, which did win the support of a majority in the other place at Second Reading. However, MPs were unable to agree a timetable for the passage of the withdrawal Bill so, once again, this has meant that the other place has been unable to progress the required legislation.

I share the frustration of many around this House. We have sat and watched over the past few months while the House of Commons has repeatedly been unable to achieve consensus on a way forward. However, a December election has now been supported by the leadership of all major parties in the other place. This presents a chance to resolve the impasse that this country has endured for too long. The Government have tabled this short Bill to set 12 December as the date of the next general election. If it passes, this Parliament will dissolve 25 working days before the date of the poll. The Bill sets the date of the election in law and removes the discretion to set the polling day which otherwise exists under the early elections provisions in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The date of 12 December allows time for the Northern Ireland budget to pass before Dissolution, which is necessary so that the Northern Ireland Civil Service can access the funding it needs to deliver public services. The date also maintains the convention that general elections are held on a Thursday, which this country has followed since the early 1930s.

As noble Lords will be aware, only one amendment to the Bill was passed in the other place yesterday. The Government tabled an amendment to address the concern raised by the Scottish National Party, which was to ensure that the registration deadline for the election in Scotland was the same as that of the rest of the country. The effect of the amendment is to remove the St Andrew’s Day bank holiday from the calculation of time in relation to the deadline for registering to vote. It will instead be classed as a normal working day, but only for this election and only for limited purposes in relation to the electoral register. This will allow for a comprehensive UK-wide communications campaign by the Electoral Commission to advertise the deadline and ensure that all those in the UK who are eligible to register can do so within the same time period.

My Lords, if the Bill is passed and the election takes place on that date, what is the earliest date on which Parliament can be reopened?

I may ask my noble friend to cover that point in his wind-up speech. I know that a number of conversations have been had, and I think that the Prime Minister has said something, but I do not want to put words in his mouth that are not accurate.

He is here!

Oh dear. This might be the last time you see me here anyway, after that. But we will respond to the noble Lord.

I hope that noble Lords will reflect, in their usual measured and considered way, on the manner in which this Bill was passed yesterday in the other place and replicate that in your Lordships’ House today. I beg to move.

My Lords, when the Prime Minister was standing for election as leader of his party—and, therefore, Prime Minister—I asked an esteemed Conservative Minister and parliamentarian of some integrity whom he was voting for. I was surprised when he said Boris Johnson. I suspect he had his misgivings, but his reason was that he thought he was a winner. I countered that Boris Johnson would see Parliament as an inconvenience, and I regret that I am being proved right.

First, we had the unlawful Prorogation, when the Prime Minister attempted to shut down Parliament for five weeks. Then, last week, having gained parliamentary support for the Second Reading of his withdrawal Bill, he pulled the Bill only because MPs would not agree to an unreasonable programme Motion—not, as the noble Baroness said, to any kind of timetable; they would indeed have agreed to a timetable, just not that timetable. All that was being sought on that occasion was the normal and reasonable process of consideration and scrutiny. Then, having won the vote on his Government’s programme for the forthcoming year, he demanded a general election—thus again trying to avoid the normal and reasonable process of scrutiny of his legislation. Then, having failed to get a two-thirds majority for an election at a time of his choosing under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, he was obviously relieved and delighted when the Liberal Democrats and the SNP threw him a lifeline and offered to support an election. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, joked during the Queen’s Speech debate that these days fact is certainly more unbelievable than fiction; he is right. This is a book that nobody would have dared write.

When the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was introduced by the coalition Government, we were told that it would create strong and stable government, even from a minority Government. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who introduced the Bill for the Government, said that this would ensure that election dates would no longer be picked for a narrow, partisan, political advantage. We were given lots of high-minded, constitutional reasons why it was so important, yet our own Constitution Committee admitted to some scepticism, recognising that the Bill’s origins and content,

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. What benefits did she think would accrue from a fixed-term Parliament, given that the Labour Party included a commitment to it in its 2010 election manifesto?

I think the noble and learned Lord will find that, at the time, we proposed several amendments to the Bill that the noble and learned Lord rejected. Even in my wildest dreams, I did not suggest that it would be strong and stable government. I think the contradiction is that, at the time that the noble and learned Lord was taking the legislation through, he said that it would stop the politicisation of elections—nobody would call an election for political advantage. What do we think is happening at the moment?

Will the noble Baroness give way?

I will, because I think the noble Lord recognises the comment I made earlier in my speech.

I need to confess that I was the Member that the noble Baroness referred to, and I was right about Boris Johnson—he is a winner, as she is about to discover. She is making a very devastating criticism of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, so can we assume that in the Labour Party’s manifesto there will be a commitment to repeal it at the earliest opportunity?

The noble Lord tempts me, and I have to say I would argue that case. Whether my party would fully accept everything I want in the manifesto is another matter, but I would certainly argue for it, because what is happening at the moment is that every time the Fixed-term Parliaments Act becomes inconvenient, the Government and their supporters could bring forward a Bill such as this in order to do away with it. Already, the Act has become nonsense.

During the Queen’s Speech debate, I joked that the first Bill in the Government’s programme would be a “Fixed-term Parliaments (Repeal) Bill”. I thought I was being clever—I have to say that my grandmother would have said I was being “too clever by half”. It was a joke, but I think it would have been a lot more honourable and honest to bring forward that kind of legislation. Perhaps the noble Lord and I could have a conversation afterwards, because if he wants to bring a Private Member’s Bill, I think it would find a fair amount of support in the House.

In that speech, I also joked about not having had a Queen’s Speech or Prorogation for more than two years, and then expecting two or even three in quick succession. I really was only joking, but some might now suspect I have a crystal ball in my office. The programme for government that we heard less than three weeks ago was, as we said at the time, a test run for the Conservative Party election manifesto rather than a serious programme for the coming year, but even we did not imagine that the election would be quite so blatantly soon. I have to say that the Tory party’s enthusiasm for a general election every time it changes leader is proving to be rather expensive for the taxpayer. With a general election, a new Parliament and yet another Queen’s Speech all within a matter a months, perhaps the normally Conservative-supporting TaxPayers’ Alliance, with its diligent examination of public spending, will be sending an invoice to the Tory Party for the October event. If not, I might just be tempted to do so myself.

My Lords, I have probably made more speeches than any other Peer arguing in favour of a referendum rather than a general election to reach a resolution on Brexit, so I am sure that many noble Lords find it rather perverse that I and my colleagues are supporting the Bill today. I last spoke in favour of a referendum, as opposed to a general election, as recently as 19 October, as the noble Baroness helpfully reminded the House. I did so in the belief that securing a referendum before the passage of the withdrawal Bill was possible. I was being assured by Members in the Commons from across the parties that that was so and that, by being patient, a pro-referendum majority would emerge.

However, to secure such a Commons majority, at least two out of three things would have to happen and, by the end of last week, it was crystal clear that none of them would. First, the DUP could have supported a referendum. It made it clear that it did not. All experience shows that when the DUP has adopted a firm position, it does not easily shift from it. Secondly, the bulk of the 21 Conservative rebels, who had at that stage had the whip withdrawn, could have supported a referendum. Instead, with barely a handful of exceptions, they swung firmly behind the Bill. Many of them have now had their reward by getting the whip back. Thirdly, Labour could have united behind a referendum. It did not. From my conversations with Labour Back-Benchers, it became clear that people were so dug into their positions that they could not find a way to justify changing tack, even if they were minded to, which they were not.

By the weekend, it was clear to me that my long-held hopes and expectation that, at the last minute, there would be a majority in the Commons for a referendum, had been dashed. This view was shared by my colleagues in the Commons and by all serious commentators, and it was time to face that reality. If a referendum was off the table, only two courses of events were then possible. First, the Government could have secured an amended timetable Motion for the Bill and sought to get it through the Commons and the Lords in coming weeks. I believe that, had the Government pursued this course, they would have prevailed and a substantially unamended Bill would have passed. We would have been out of the EU by Christmas.

Will my noble friend make clear that it would still be open to a Government, after the election, to hold a confirmatory referendum?