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851 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 1 DECEMBER 2010 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 852 Mr Shepherd: I am a little puzzled as to why the hon. Gentleman comes to the conclusion that this needs to be codified in any way. Our history demonstrates quite openly that this House comes to such a resolution by the processes of the House. When Mr Chamberlain won the famous Norway debate, he recognised that there was no confidence in him personally. These matters are eventually decided by the House and by the judgment of individuals. Surely that is the better way of doing it. Chris Bryant: In a sense, that is an argument against the whole Bill which I understand. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not saying that this is a conspiracy, but I think that the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex feels that a bit of a cosy consensus has developed around the fact that there should be a codification of fixed-term Parliaments. We agree with that codification. However, once one starts to codify one element, one has to codify rather a lot of them. That is why I have wanted to codify what counts as a motion of no confidence and what should be a motion of confidence. Perhaps we should have tried to codify it in a slightly different way so that, for instance, a motion to amend the Loyal Address could also be considered as such, as in 1924. Mr Jenkin: What the hon. Gentleman is suggesting might well be sensible in one respect, but I fear that it will not prevent the courts from having a go at this. Indeed, if what constitutes a motion of confidence is codified in our Standing Orders, the courts will then be interpreting whether our Standing Orders reflect what could be regarded as such. If he wants clarity and is seeking to provide a better definition, this has to be put into the legislation. Of course, that reflects the point that we are tempting the courts to interfere in the proceedings of this House. Chris Bryant: That is an interesting point. The Bill of Rights refers, I think in section 9, to the fact that proceedings in Parliament shall not be touched by any other court. The moot point then is what constitutes a proceeding in Parliament. There have been many discussions about this over the past couple of years, not least in relation to the arrest of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex is right in one sense. However, I have presumed—this is the advice that I had when I sat on the Government Benches as Deputy Leader of the House—that parliamentary privilege covers proceedings in Parliament and the whole of the Standing Orders of this House, because that how this House chooses to proceed. I think that there is greater security in the Standing Orders of the House. Another issue is how we ensure that the Speaker is not dragged into a partisan contest, particularly at a moment of great political drama. As I said in an earlier debate, my concern is that if it is left for the Speaker to have to determine all these elements, the Speaker’s impartiality is compromised. Another strange element of the Bill is the provision that says that before the Speaker issues his certificate, he shall consult the Deputy Speakers. That mirrors the provision in the 1911 Act whereby the Speaker, before issuing his certificate on a money Bill, has to consult two members of the Panel of Chairs. What happens if all the Deputy Speakers disagree with issuing the certificate? Why should the Speaker have to consult? One presumes that it is simply a matter of fact, although I suppose we all know that facts are rarely clearly delineated and are rather more subjective than most people would want to admit. The point is, however, that this puts the Speaker and potentially the House in peril, because people may want to contest any one of the various elements of the Speaker’s decision. One of the matters that would almost certainly arise if there were any contest as to whether the certificate was being rightly issued is what the Deputy Speakers had said. That is an unfortunate direction for us to take. We have tabled an amendment, on which I hope to divide the Committee, on the timing of when the Speaker issues the certificate. At the moment, the Bill makes no provision whatsoever on when the Speaker’s certificate should be issued. One therefore presumes that it could be a month, two months or several months after the passage of two weeks. Let us say, for instance, that after a motion of no confidence has been carried, the Government try to reform themselves with a different concatenation of political parties and do not manage to secure a new motion of confidence, but there are still patently ongoing negotiations that are nearing their closing phase. Would it then be all right for the Speaker not to issue a certificate at that point but to wait until such time that another Government had been formed? The difficulty is that if the Speaker chose not to do so, who is to gainsay the Speaker? There is no provision in the Bill for what would happen if the Speaker has not done what the Bill requires. For all those reasons, I believe that this element of the Bill is flawed. I also believe that certain elements should not be in statute but should be in Standing Orders in order to provide greater certainty for the House by taking them within the concept of proceedings of this House. Above all, I want to ensure that there is no uncertainty about the specific provision as to when the Speaker has to act and when the Speaker may act. Jesse Norman: I wish to speak in favour of the amendment. First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Minister on the very calm and effective way in which he has steered this legislation through the House? None the less, it seems to me that a basic issue with the legislation remains unresolved. It has been described in this House as a matter of parliamentary privilege, but in fact it concerns the fundamental principle of parliamentary sovereignty. One thinks of the magisterial words of A.V. Dicey: “The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely that Parliament thus defined”— by which he means the King or Queen in Parliament, rather than just Parliament itself— “has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever: and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.” That is the cardinal principle at issue today. It is worth saying that our parliamentary sovereignty remains intact in principle. It remains open to this House to repeal, if it so wished, the Act of Settlement 1701 by simple majority. The sovereignty of Parliament can thus be deliberately limited in its effects by this House—for
853 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 1 DECEMBER 2010 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 854 example, by treaty—but it should not be limited by accident, by inadvertence or by over-confidence. There is a risk—a small risk—that this will happen under these provisions. The Clerk of the House has advised in writing and in testimony that to include parliamentary voting procedure in statute would risk judicial scrutiny of the proceedings of this House, and possible legal challenge. It is important to note that this is not merely the view of the Clerk of the House, but also the view of Speaker’s Counsel, and it has legal authority behind it. That is simply because the functions described under the clause are statutory functions, and it would therefore be for the courts to determine whether those functions are lawfully exercised. That is, of course, advice rendered to the House, not to the Government. 2.30 pm This issue was rightly taken up by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in its report on the Bill. In response, the Government relied on expert witnesses to show that the Bill would avoid unwarranted legal challenge. As has been discussed, the Clerk recommended a way past the problem, which was that the procedure should be written into Standing Orders, but that was rejected by the Government. In my judgment, it is perfectly legitimate for the Government, after due consideration and on legal advice, to insist on their preferred approach of including the relevant procedures in the legislation, rather than in Standing Orders. Nevertheless, we are discussing a separate issue—related, but separate. I believe that the Government would be well advised to accept the amendment for three reasons. First, as with all legal issues, this issue is not absolutely clear; it does not admit of certainty. The Government have relied on expert advice, but when Dawn Oliver and Anthony Bradley gave testimony to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, both experts acknowledged the small but clear risk of judicial challenge. They stated that precedent and statute are being relied on that may themselves require new legislative support. As has been noted today, that risk would be magnified by the heat and time pressure of an election. I would like to correct something that I said earlier to the Committee with reference to Harold Lever, by quoting from the evidence of the Clerk of the House before the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: “I won’t bore the Committee with too many precedents, but I couldn’t resist this one. This is from 1974 and it’s to do with the passage of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill. I will read a very short extract from the Journal of that year. ‘Mr Harold Lever, Member for Manchester Central, acquainted the House, That in the Divisions on Amendments…to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill…he was recorded as having voted with the Noes, but he had to inform the House that he was not within the Precincts of the House at the time of those Divisions and that in consequence his vote ought not to have been so recorded.’” The Clerk continued: “In this case, when Mr Lever came to the House and acquainted the House about his absence, the whole procedure was declared null and void, including the Third Reading of the Bill. The Bill had to be called back from the House of Lords and the whole process had to happen again.” He concluded: “I don’t think I need labour the point of what this would mean in terms of a no confidence vote.” Secondly, I think that the Government should accept the amendment because there is a clear trend of more public decisions falling under the scrutiny of the courts. I do not think that that is currently happening in domestic law, and in my view fears over judicial activism are misplaced. Nevertheless, we now have an independent Supreme Court that might not always exercise the restraint and care that has been shown by the present generation of judges in acknowledging and preserving the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. The European Courts are taking a greater interest in domestic matters. The European Court of Human Rights has heard at least one case that the British courts would not consider on the grounds that it fell under parliamentary jurisdiction. European judges have expressed concern over the lack of remedies against the exercise of parliamentary privilege. Mr Jenkin: My hon. Friend is making an extremely important point about the European Court of Human Rights. As soon as something gets into the Court, it respects no immunities whatsoever—nor does the European Court of Justice, but that is not adverted to in this case. Once a case is in that system, we do not know where it will lead. The European Court of Human Rights certainly would not respect the limitations of the 1689 Act. Jesse Norman: I do not wish to comment on the procedure or intention of the European Courts, but I note merely that it is true historically that their scrutiny has extended itself over time. It is noted less than it should be that European judges have expressed concern about the exercise of parliamentary privilege and about the lack of remedies that people possess against its exercise. The final reason why the Government should look again at the amendment is that the consequences of a mistake could be momentous. In the short term, a dissolution of Parliament and thereby an election could hang on it. In the longer term, there could be wider political and constitutional implications of judicial scrutiny of our power. The amendment is simply worded, it offers an additional layer of protection for Parliament against a serious threat, and it does so at little or no additional cost. I urge the Minister to give it serious consideration. Tristram Hunt: I, too, shall speak to amendment 6, which would take us some way in the direction in which we should be heading to protect this place from the actions of the courts. Every day, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said, we see growing evidence of interference by and elements of activism in the courts. We now have the Supreme Court in Parliament square, and large buildings tend to have large consequences. The emeritus professor of public administration at University college London, Professor Gavin Drewry, has recorded a major shift towards cases of public law, with some high-profile cases having a constitutional air: “The establishment of the Supreme Court is an important constitutional landmark, and it would be surprising if the Court itself were to stand completely aside from the ongoing process of constitutional development.” There is a strong sense of certainty that the Supreme Court will be involved.
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