here - United Kingdom Parliament

831 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 1 DECEMBER 2010 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 832
[Mr Harper]
general election was unclear, we could end up having a
succession of general elections. Amendment 5 would
force such elections to be held. In countries that have
fixed-term Parliaments it is very common for there to
be a period of Government formation after a vote of no
confidence before an election is triggered. That is what
happens in Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Sweden,
so we are proposing an approach that has much precedent,
which we think is sensible. We cannot ask my hon.
Friend the Member for Stone to withdraw his amendment,
because he is not here and thus unable to do so. However,
we urge Members who are here not to insist on it being
pressed to a Division.
Mr Jenkin: I have been in touch with my hon. Friend
the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who makes things
complicated because he does not text people. He is in
Budapest representing the European Scrutiny Committee,
but he has suggested that it would be in the interests of
the scrutiny of this Bill to press the amendment to a
Division, and one or two of us will attempt to do so.
Mr Harper: As I said, my hon. Friend the Member
for Stone is away on parliamentary business and, as he
has perhaps not reached 21st century methods of
communication, my words are unlikely to reach him in
a timely way. So I can only urge him not to press his
amendment to a vote, but I suspect that the decision on
that will be for others, not for him.
Chris Bryant: As it happens, I agree with the Minister
on this amendment. However, the one area that it will
be worth considering on Report is whether it would be
sensible to have a motion of confidence on the forming
of a new Government after a general election, which
should be treated in a slightly different way. Such an
approach would address the 1924 situation that he
suggests.
Mr Harper: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point,
which has been raised by others. I believe I am right in
saying that the hon. Member for Nottingham North
(Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Select Committee on
Political and Constitutional Reform, has said he is keen
on the idea of installing Prime Ministers with an explicit
vote in the House—he was speaking for himself there,
not for the Committee. That would be a further change
to our system and, as I said in answer to the hon.
Member for Leicester South (Sir Peter Soulsby), we
have made the necessary changes in the law to take away
the Prime Minister’s right to call an early general election,
but we have not gone further. I shall think about what
the hon. Member for Rhondda said and see whether we
think it has merit.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendment 22 seeks to replace
the 14 days that we set out in the Bill for that Government
formation period with a period of 10 working days. He
is supportive of a Government formation period, because
he would not be attempting to keep one through this
amendment were he not. I think he was wanting to
understand why we chose the period that we did, using
calendar days rather than working days. The reason
why we did so was because the calendar day period is
fixed and certain, whereas working days are not, as they
are dependent on things such as bank holidays.
Two legitimate concerns are involved here, and they
were touched on last week. There is a concern that the
number of business days in the 14-day period would be
curtailed or that the date of the no confidence vote
could mean that the date for the Government formation
vote fell on a non-working day. Our view—I am interested
to hear the hon. Gentleman’s—is that discussions on
Government formation would not stop on weekends
and bank holidays; I suspect that they would continue,
given that having a Government is probably the most
important thing for the country.
There are two ways around a scenario where the vital
14th day when the vote of confidence is due falls on a
day when the House would conventionally not be sitting.
The first is to arrange that the no confidence motion be
taken on a day that means that the House will be sitting
14 days later. The alternative is for the House simply to
sit on what would traditionally have been a non-sitting
day. There is nothing to prevent the House from sitting,
if it chooses to do so, on a bank holiday, a Saturday or a
Sunday. Non-working days are not days when the House
cannot sit, even though it does not do so. There are
precedents for the House sitting on such days when
emergencies have happened. I believe I am right in
saying that the House was recalled to sit on a Saturday
when the Falkland Islands were invaded by the Argentines.
Holding a vote on whether a new Government did or
did not have the confidence of the House would be
sufficiently important that it would be in order for the
House to sit that day, even if it was not a conventional
day.
Chris Bryant: The Minister is right in relation to the
Falkland Islands, and I believe that the House has also
sat on a Sunday on the demise of the monarch. That is
precisely why we did not specify “sitting days” in this
amendment; we used the term “working days” because
that is the language used throughout the rest of the Bill.
We sought to provide a degree of flexibility; otherwise,
over Easter, when there are bank holidays on the Friday
and the following Monday, there might be a sustained
period when the House would find it inconceivable to
sit but the Government might, none the less, want to be
able to do their business.
Mr Harper: For the purposes of this particular set of
motions, the only business that we would be talking
about the House undertaking would be holding a vote
on whether or not a new Government who had been
formed had the confidence of the House. Given the
things that the Government are responsible for, it would
be important to have a clear Government in place for
the financial markets and at difficult times. We know
from experience and we can see it from what happens in
other countries. Therefore, the Government formation
negotiations would want to be concluded and it would
benefit the country, the Government and the House for
the House to vote on that without inordinate delay. If
there were a number of bank holidays or other holidays
in the way, that could be dealt with. [Interruption.] The
hon. Gentleman asks about Good Friday. As I have
said, the alternative is that we could arrange things by
moving the no confidence vote so that it was 14 days
before a sitting day.
Conventionally, no confidence motions are given time
in the House very soon after they are tabled, but as long
as the Government were prepared to table such a motion