(Con)
My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to
acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the
purport of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, has
consented to place her prerogative, so far as it is affected by
the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the
Bill.
Motion
Moved by
That the Bill do now pass.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office () (Con)
My Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for its expertise and
careful work on the Bill. It has again demonstrated the
constitutional, legal and political expertise that makes this
House such a remarkable revising Chamber. The Government have
valued those exchanges, as have I. I particularly thank the noble
Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the noble Lords, , and , the noble and
learned Lord, , and the Front Benches for their
co-operation and discussions.
We disagreed on the question of whether there should be a role
for the other place over Dissolution. However, although we do not
believe it is good practice for this place to seek to dictate
procedure in the other place, we will of course now properly
await their further opinion on this point. The Government will
oppose your Lordships’ amendment in the other place, for all the
reasons that I set out during the passage of the Bill. Our
intention was to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and that
remains our intention.
In conclusion, I thank the dedicated Bill team for its hard work
over so many months, which I am sure was appreciated by
colleagues on all sides. I thank all noble Lords who have taken
part for their dedication in scrutinising the Bill and for their
courtesy in our many meetings. It has been an honour to assist
the Bill’s passage and serve your Lordships, and I beg to move
that the Bill do now pass.
(Lab Co-op)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon,
who is unable to be with us this morning as she is having a
briefing at the moment, I thank the noble Lord for his usual
courtesy in dealing with the House and for taking this Bill
through it. I also thank the Bill team for the meetings that took
place. As he said, we have had scrutinised the Bill well and made
one change. We have sent that back to the other place, and we
will wait for it to come back to us, and then we will have
further debates on that. I know my noble friend is very grateful
for the co-operation we have received on the Bill going through.
I sat in on many of the debates, and the other Benches were
fascinating to listen to. I think we have done our job well and
properly, and we await the decision of the other place. I give
our thanks to the noble Lord, other Members, the officials and
the team in the Labour Whips’ Office for what they did.
(LD)
My Lords, I add my thanks. It is important that we conduct
legislation in the House, and off the Floor in between the
different stages, in the way we did on this Bill and I hope will
do also on the Elections Bill—a much longer and more complex
Bill. Indeed, we discovered on Second Reading of that Bill
yesterday that abolishing the fixed terms for Parliament has
knock-on effects for third-party campaigning—a point made in
yesterday’s debate. We in this House often deal with the complex
interdependence of different aspects of the rules that govern our
democracy. There will be a rising tide of opinion inside and
outside Parliament that we need to look at some of these things
fairly soon together, rather than in one chunk after another. I
regret to repeat—the Minister will hear it yet again—that I did
agree with the part of the Conservative manifesto that said there
should be a constitutional commission. I hope it will be in the
next Conservative manifesto, and I hope it will be in the
manifestos of other parties and that it will then happen. Having
said that, I look forward with interest to how the Commons will
respond to the Lords amendment, and perhaps it will return
here.
(CB)
My Lords, I join in thanking everybody. I have two points, one
serious and one less so. One is an entirely private thought, so
nobody is listening to me saying this: I hope the Commons has
enough time to look at the issues that arise in relation to this
Bill. The other is of particular thanks to the noble Lord, , who is not in his place, for
reminding me of a lesson I learned when I did English language
grammar—gosh, does that still exist? I was taught the auxiliary
verbs “shall”, “should”, “will”, “would”, “may”, “can”, “must”
and “do” and to appreciate the difference between “shall” and
“must.”
(Lab)
My Lords, I have just a small observation on the suggestion of
the noble Lord, , that we were somehow telling the
Commons to alter its procedures or advising it on its procedures
in relation to this Bill. What we have done is say to the House
of Commons that we are an unelected House, but we want it to
think again whether it is wise for it, the elected House, to say,
“No, we don’t want these powers of Dissolution at all. We think
it is important they are carried out by the monarch.” I think
that is a development without precedent anywhere in the world—the
legislature saying it does not want these powers and wants to
give them back to the monarch. That does put a slightly different
construct on what we are asking the Commons to consider.
12.14pm
Bill passed and returned to the Commons with an amendment.
