Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-09
Topic: Government Operations
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, as a layman and an unashamed politician, I want to make a couple of layman’s/politician’s observations in what has been a largely legal argument Much of this discussion—in fact, the whole of this Report stage—has been considered with the ghost of the 2017-19 Parliament at its back; the cloud over us, one could say. It was a very unfortunate Parliament—in the past I have called it poisonous—and we need to be careful about drawing all sorts of long-term constitutional conclusions from that period. This relates to my observation on the debate about the ouster clause: it is, as others have said, trying to solve the problem of Miller 2 To me, as a layman, Miller 2 did present some problems. One is unarguable—and I am cautious about saying that—in that it did massively involve the courts in an intensely political situation. I know it tried to give disclaimers in its judgment, and all the rest of it, but I can tell you, as a politician, it is hard to imagine a more intense, political, biting debate than the one that existed in relation to Britain’s membership of the European Union, and the courts went slam dunk right into the middle of that debate. In my view this is not a good precedent I would also say—and I am sure I will be stopped if I trespass here—that it involved the courts in arguments which I know are legal arguments, doubtless very good legal arguments, but they do not make much sense to the layman. Part of the Miller 2 judgment was to say that the Prorogation had not happened. Although I understand the lawyers’ argument for saying so, it does not make much common sense to an observer. It is like saying that the sun comes up in the morning, and it is up there now, but the law says that the sun has not risen. I say, "Look, it is up there now," but the law says it is still where it was before. That kind of ugly language and reasoning is—at least to me—something that we do not want to see employed too often. It is employed in the Bill itself; it is as though the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 had never happened, but both those things—the Act and, unfortunately, the Prorogation —had happened I simply make the following observation. If I am right that we want to make things intelligible to both lawyers and non-lawyers, if I am right that 2017-19 was a really bad patch, and if I am right in saying that we really do not want the courts—however exceptional it might be—telling the people when they can and cannot have a general election, then I have offered a solution. I am sorry I keep coming back—actually I am not going to apologise at all, because it is right—to the amendment by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. If only the House of Commons would apply its mind to the arguments that have been deployed in this House during the consideration of previous amendments, that would solve all the problems. If there were a resolution of Parliament then the courts would not intervene, the monarch would not have decisions to make and there would be no need for the ouster clause Let us lift up our eyes and hope that the Commons weighs the merits of the amendment that we have sent back to them, recognises those merits, votes not on a purely partisan basis but on the basis of the strength of the arguments, and retains the change that we have already made to the Bill.