Nick Clegg: “no to 55%”

I’m delighted that Nick Clegg has thought better of the proposal, initially agreed by the coalition, that Parliament should not be dissolved unless a majority of 55% votes for dissolution. This is what he said in his statement to the Commons today:

First, we are introducing legislation to fix parliamentary terms. The date of the next General Election will be 7 May 2015. This is a hugely significant constitutional innovation. It is simply not right that General Elections can be called according to a Prime Minister’s whims. So, this Prime Minister will be the first Prime Minister to give up that right.

I know that when the coalition agreement was published there was some concern at these proposals. We have listened carefully to those, and I can announce today how we will proceed, in a Bill that will be introduced before the summer recess:

First – traditional powers of no confidence will be put into law, and a vote of no confidence will still require only a simple majority.  Second – if, after a vote of no confidence, a Government cannot be formed for 14 days, Parliament will be dissolved and a General Election will be held. Let me be clear: these steps will strengthen parliament’s power over the executive. Third – there will be an additional power for parliament to vote for an early and immediate dissolution. We have decided that a majority of two thirds will be needed to carry the vote, as opposed to the 55% first suggested, as is the case in the Scottish Parliament. These changes will make it impossible for any government to force a dissolution for its own purposes.

These proposals should make it absolutely clear to the House that votes of no confidence and votes for early dissolution are entirely separate. And that we are putting in place safeguards against a lame duck government being left in limbo if the House passes a vote of no confidence but does not vote for early dissolution.

I’m against fixed-term Parliaments. Most people understand the idea as meaning simply that we should remove the Prime Minister’s unilateral right to ask for a dissolution of Parliament – but that is only a right to ask, not to get a dissolution from the Queen, and the argument that the right has been or is likely to be abused is in my view pretty thin. Wanting fixed-term Parliaments in this commonly understood weak form is a sort of constitutional tidy-mindedness. No more.

But even if you support fixed-term Parliaments in this sense, there were good reasons to object to the original proposal.

First, to require a 55% vote to dissolve Parliament rather than a simple majority would have been to legislate for a stronger form of fixed-term Parliaments than many people had ever even considered – a big constitutional change to make in the absence of any meaningful public debate, and one that even many supporters of fixed term Parliaments were uncomfortable with. To most people apart from committed “Unlock Democracy” nerds, it just seems wrong that a minority (46%) of MPs should be able to force all MPs to remain in their jobs when a majority (54%) wants to face the electorate.

Worse, the original 55% threshold was exquisitely calculated to favour the narrow partisan interests of the coalition parties. It would deny the opposition the right to force an election on the coalition even if it lost its majority. And, uniquely, it would enable one party, the Conservatives, a unilateral right to deny an election if every other party wanted one. Most cynically of all, it would enable the coalition to trigger a dissolution whenever it wanted to – which is not objectionable in itself but which would have meant the government’s unilateral right to ask for a dissolution would not be abolished at all, but actually strengthened into a right to obtain one.

So I’m pleased Nick Clegg has seen constitutional sense. It may seem odd that I welcome the change from a 55% threshold to a 66% threshold, since that’s in a sense a stronger form of fixed-term provision. I do for two reasons. First, at least 66% is not calibrated self-servingly. Under this proposal, the government would be at no special advantage in relation to obtaining a dissolution, which at least would deliver what fixed-term Parliaments are normally thought to be for.

Secondly and more important though is the key concession that there should be a dissolution and an election if, 14 days after a vote of no confidence in the government, no alternative government is formed. This ability of a determined majority to force an election (by refusing to form a government and by voting down any would-be minority government) is an essential constitutional safeguard, and reflects similar safety valves in the Scotland Act 1998 and in the German constitution.

Clegg’s new proposals are still worse than what we currently have: it is not clear who should govern during the 14 days following a no-confidence vote, who should govern during any subsequent election campaign and who should govern following a general election if there is a hung Parliament and a period of negotiations as there was this year. These are the type of questions you raise if you tinker in a half-baked manner with a working constitution, and we need answers to them. But at least the Deputy Prime Minister is no longer trying to force through the appalling “55%” wheeze.