Fixed-term Parliaments

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) was enacted after the General Election of 2010, which resulted in a hung parliament. As part of the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the purpose of the Act was a short-term one: to prevent either coalition party causing a snap election at a time of its choosing. Under the FTPA the next general election is automatically scheduled for the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election—or the fourth year if the date of the previous election was before the first Thursday in May.

The first election called under the Act was that of 2015. In 2019, because the Conservative government of the day could not get its Brexit Bill through the House of Commons, they introduced the Early Parliamentary General Election Bill, to take advantage of one of the exceptions provided for in the FTPA, whereby an election can take place subject to the approval of two-thirds of MPs. In a moment of egregious hubris and stupidity, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn directed his MPs to vote for the Bill ("bring it on!"), the election resulting in an overall majority of 80 for the Conservative party and the subsequent passing into law of Brexit.

The new government then proposed to repeal the FTPA ("job done; let's get back to the PM doing whatever he wants"); the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill was introduced in December 2020 and a joint Commons-Lords Committee established to consider its provisions. After the Committee reported, the Bill - renamed as Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill (DACOP) - was given its first reading on 12 May this year and completed all stages through the House of Commons on 13 September, being given a third reading by 312 votes to 55.

The second reading debate is scheduled for 24 November (SOON - diarise this) in the House of Lords. It's clear that this legislation will be enacted so: does it matter?

The Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Scottish Nationalists were those who voted against the DACOP. I suppose that's understandable: they will never (at least for a while) be in a position to benefit from the restoration of the power of the Prime Minister of the day to request a prorogation from the Monarch. It is clearly in the interest of the two largest parties, who expect to be competing for forming a government, to be able to call an election when they seem best placed to win it. The Labour Party manifesto of 2019 promised to repeal the FTPA on the grounds that it had "stifled democracy and propped up weak governments". They however inexplicably abstained this time round, clearly uncertain whether they supported democracy or not.

At present the FTPA is still in place and the next general election is due on 2 May 2024. Given the present government's travails, it may actually not happen until then - the DACOP still includes the "maximum five year" term limit.

Should we care about this? I guess for some of my readers a return to the old arrangement might seem more likely to result in a "get rid of Boris" moment but it might actually turn out to be the opposite; be careful what you wish for. I'm not sure that Prime Ministers are always smart enough to judge the moment to call an election. Remember Gordon Brown in 2008? Missing the opportunity after taking over from Tony Blair, he "bottled" it. The Guardian called it "the biggest unforced political error in the history of New Labour."

I turned to Wikipedia for an assessment of how the biggest democracies of the world handled the issue of fixed term parliaments. The most common appear to be fixed or maximum terms with provisions for extreme circumstances such as a deadlock between two chambers, e.g. the House of Representatives and Senate in Australia. The three "absolute", i.e. non-negotiable, fixed term parliaments are in the US, Europe and Norway. In Australia, actually, the Senate has the "fixed except for deadlock" provision but the House of Representatives has only a maximum term. There are so many weird variations that I would need a few years of constant [and sponsored] travel round the world to get you the information you need in order to judge the pros and cons of each different system.

If you don't see Boris or Geoffrey Cox in the House of Commons for the next few months, that's probably what they're doing.