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857 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 1 DECEMBER 2010 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill 858
minded to say that this debate is certifiable? Will you
declare that we are going through a potentially certifiable
chain of political and constitutional events?” Of course,
the Speaker might wish to say, “You are trying to draw
me into a matter of controversy”, because he might not
be privy to what Whips are saying to Members about
the significance of a particular motion.
2.45 pm
What would happen if the Speaker said that a motion
was not certifiable, and the Prime Minister subsequently
decided that the nature, colour and content of the
debate meant that it had been a motion of no confidence
in him rather than in the Government, as in the example
of the 1940 debate mentioned by the hon. Member for
Aldridge-Brownhills? Somebody could announce from
the Dispatch Box, on either the Opposition or Government
side of the House, that as far as they were concerned,
there had been a motion of no confidence. Would that
mean that the Speaker’s ruling was somehow removed
or overturned? If anybody wanted to contest in court
either the issuing of a certificate or the failure to issue
one, that sequence of events involving the Speaker and
Front Benchers could become relevant. It could become
a matter of contest and controversy being presented in
court.
Even short of the matter getting to the courts, we are
already potentially compromising the Speaker. He will
constantly be hostage to inquiries as to whether a
particular motion could be treated as a motion of no
confidence, and his ruling could at any time be upstaged
from the Treasury Bench.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): My children
once asked me, “What does a heffalump look like?” I
said, “You’ll know one when you see one.” Has that
not been the case with confidence motions throughout
history? The House has known one when it has seen
one, and we are in danger of over-complicating the
process in the Bill.
Mark Durkan: I have a lot of sympathy with what the
hon. Gentleman says, and that was why I indicated my
support for earlier amendments that would have narrowed
the ambiguity and reduced the possibility of political
and procedural chicanery, with which the Bill is riddled.
Chris Bryant: Will my hon. Friend point out to the
hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) that there is
a picture of the heffalump in several of A. A. Milne’s
books?
Mark Durkan: I accept that point fully.
Mr Walker: I shall admonish my children for not
being better read.
Mark Durkan: I will acknowledge these interventions
no further.
To return to the matter at hand, let us be clear that
the Bill’s provisions are open to all sorts of contests,
questions and controversies. As I have said, I believe
that the Minister was wrong to say that the House will
know in all circumstances when something is a vote of
confidence. If he wanted to make that incontrovertibly
so, he would need to provide either in Standing Orders
or in the Bill for a formal indication by the Speaker that
a certificate could be issued prior to the period set out
in the Bill, which starts 14 days after a motion. That, in
turn, would bring the Speaker into areas of political
controversy and intervention. Amendment 6 is clearly
aimed at ensuring that those difficulties do not make
the issuing of a certificate, or possibly the failure to
issue one, a matter of controversy that can be brought
to the courts.
In discussing previous amendments, Members alluded
to affairs currently in Oireachtas Éireann and in the
Dail. Those affairs may be relevant this week, because
an opposition party there has indicated that it might
take to the courts the question whether, under the
constitution, the agreement that the Irish Government
have entered into has to be subject to a vote of the Dail.
Let us not rule out circumstances in which a party here,
possibly a party of Opposition, could feel that the
Speaker had wrongly declined to issue a certificate, or
that the Government were using all sorts of procedural
chicanery to prevent certificates being issued and to
reset the clock. That party might then feel obliged to
take the matter to court if it felt that it faced dead ends
and chicanery in Parliament. That is exactly the situation
that was threatened in Dublin this week given what the
Irish Labour party justice spokesman said. Let us not
join the Minister in completely dismissing all such
possibilities.
I do not want to move from Dublin to Northern
Ireland affairs, but I have some experience of what
happens in practice. I was involved in negotiating and
implementing the Good Friday agreement, including as
a Minister and Deputy First Minister. Ministers told
this House that procedures would follow their own
course and that political matters would not end up in
the courts, but then I found that my election as Deputy
First Minister was taken to court—when I was jointly
elected with David Trimble—because all sorts of rules
were bent and twisted and the clock was reset by
Secretaries of State and others.
The Northern Ireland Act 1998 set a clear six-week
period, but Secretaries of State discovered that if they
suspended things for 24 hours, there would be a new
six-week period. Whenever there is a facility to contrive
a completely new situation and dispose of a statutory
deadline, it is used—whenever Ministers are told that in
case of emergency they can smash the glass, they do so.
Completely contrary to the assurances and explanations
given to the House when we debated the 1998 Act, a
number of Secretaries of State found themselves doing
that. In addition, Assembly Members redesignated to
pass particular votes, even though they said that they
would not, and so on.
In the context of the Bill, people have said that a
Government would never put themselves in the
embarrassing position of activating a vote of no confidence
in themselves or cutting corners, ignoring rules or resetting
clocks so that they can bypass dates and deadlines, but
the Northern Ireland experience shows that that is not
so. The exigencies of the moment, and the demands for
stability and good governance, can be used as circumstantial
excuses. Let us not pretend otherwise. If we are trying
to provide for fixed-term Parliaments with clear, fixed
and guaranteed arrangements, we must go further than
the Bill does. It leaves too much power in the hands of
the Prime Minister and the Executive when there has
been a motion of no confidence, and in respect of their
influence over the decision of whether a motion is one
of no confidence or otherwise.