Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill — House of Lords, 2022-01-25
Topic: Government Operations
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, before I speak to Amendments 7 and 9, I want to say one or two things about the conditions for Report. Here we are, late at night. We have just listened to the Minister make what I think is the longest speech I have ever heard to sum up in Committee, at 30 minutes, and there are still some important issues to debate. I appreciate that the length of his speech reflected the complexity and importance of the issues in a constitutional Bill; that being the case, we will need the time on Report, with a full House and without the enforcement of unusually short speeches, to discuss them further The House of Commons went through the Committee, Report and Third Reading stages of this Bill in less than two hours—not good for a constitutional Bill. This House is going through its Committee stage in a few hours, stretching late into the night. I very much hope that, when we come to Report, the usual channels will ensure that we start in prime time and address the very important issues, particularly in Clauses 2 and 3, at length and with the House listening Amendments 7 and 9 are probing amendments on the balance between frequent elections and regular elections and, secondly, about what time of the year they should be held if possible. I speak as someone with experience of having fought two elections in one year, the first in February and the second in late October. Yesterday, I talked to a former Conservative MP who said that he remembered having the impression of being damp for an entire month during a winter election. It is good for democracy if we have elections on a regular basis and in good weather in the summer; that is why I suggest that, where possible, we should have elections in June It is also good because regular elections allow for a longer period to know when controlled expenditure should be imposed and when the Opposition are entitled to talk to the Civil Service to prepare for a potential change of government. The prime ministerial prerogative to jump elections when they think is most to their advantage—we have not yet talked about incumbency advantage—deprives the Opposition of the advantage to prepare properly for governance afterwards. Good governance matters to an effective constitutional democracy I am also concerned about the effective monitoring and administration of campaigns. I go and talk to my local electoral registration team from time to time; my ear has been bent on the difficulties of running election campaigns at short notice. I heard anger in Bradford some months ago about Conservative MPs saying, "There is no problem—all it requires is for staff to work harder if it comes to it". I tabled the amendments to test the question: how often do we want to have elections, and do we wish to leave it entirely open as to whether they are in December, January or June? In my opinion, the default should be June, not coinciding with the May elections or devolved national elections. The exceptions should be at times of the year not including winter. That is the purpose of my amendments.