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Dissolution of Parliament

There are many cases in history when Governments have called general elections because they wish to seek a mandate for whatever policies they were putting to the country long before the expiry of a Parliament—[Interruption.] I refer the hon. Gentleman to Baldwin in 1923, before the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), says that that was not a Tory Government. Indeed, many Governments in the 1950s and the 1980s sought re-election before the end of the Parliament, and on some of those occasions, the Opposition were asking for an election—certainly they were in 1923. If the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) has any further historical inquiries, I hope that he will make them. While the question of the dissolution of Parliament cannot simply be settled by reference to public demand, it has to be accepted by any commentator or participant in our politics that the current circumstances of this Parliament, already in its final year, are without precedent in modern times. Not only is public faith in this House at its lowest possibly at any time since the late 18th century and the mail franking scandal—a historical reference for the hon. Gentleman—but public support for the Government is, by reference to any of the widespread elections held last week, the lowest by some distance for any incumbent Government at any point in our modern democratic history. Such a combination means that this Parliament lacks the authority to embark on new and substantial programmes of policy or reform, even if it had time or if the Government had the energy, purpose or vision. Vision, of course, was the crucial ingredient promised by the Prime Minister when he suddenly called off the general election planned in the autumn of 2007. He said that he would not call an election so that he could set out his vision. Curiously, he then forgot to do so. Indeed, the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble)—a former Labour Minister—has pointed that out. In her letter last week, she wrote that""the vision has not materialised."" She added that the people""look to the government for high quality public services, and a sense of purpose and direction for the country. The prime minister has to articulate that and, sadly, it hasn't happened."" That is what Labour Members think. Then the reason not to have an election was to set out the vision. Now the reason memorably given by the Prime Minister in his interview a month ago on GMTV is that an election would cause chaos. That revealing insight into the bunker-like mentality of No. 10 Downing street is a further argument that the people in the country should have their say. The Prime Minister feared chaos at the ballot box, presumably in place of the well-ordered conduct of government that we have witnessed in recent weeks. The Home Secretary resigned on Tuesday, the Communities and Local Government Secretary on Wednesday, and the Work and Pensions Secretary on Thursday. Downing street worked for 48 hours, through the night, to save the Prime Minister from being overthrown by his Cabinet. What a relief it is that there was no chaos in this country in the last couple of weeks. The argument against holding an election on the grounds of chaos possesses three shattering weaknesses. First, it can presumably be used at any time and could be used to justify never asking the people to go to the polls for fear of the chaotic consequences that they might haplessly bring down on themselves. It is an argument of which Ceausescu would have been proud, as he pathetically waved from the balcony at the tens of thousands who had come to remove him. Secondly, such an argument shows a patronising misreading of the people of this country, who have never in recent times produced chaotic scenes in a general election and have seldom produced a chaotic result. The Prime Minister can rest assured that they will go about their democratic duty when they get the chance without any trace of chaos, but with a quiet and determined efficiency. Thirdly, it is a comment that says little for those countries that have recently had a full-scale general election, even in the midst of a world economic recession. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) pointed out that some of them had fixed-term Parliaments, but they still managed to conduct their elections in the middle of that recession. They include among their number no less a country than India, the world's largest and most complex democracy, where a respected Government won the authority and increased freedom of manoeuvre that came from a renewal of their mandate. The United States of America is the world's most powerful democracy, in which elections produced a renewal and reinvigoration of national leadership on an utterly historic scale. The people of India and America managed to have their elections in a perfectly orderly way, and after campaigns that were far longer than a general election campaign in this country, but the Prime Minister believes that an election in this country—from which those countries derive so many of their proud democratic traditions—would be impossibly chaotic. What does that say about his view of Britain and the British people? It is yet further proof that he is incapable of trusting the people of Britain. To be fair to the Secretary of State, his loyalty to the Prime Minister does not extend to adopting the nonsensical arguments against an election employed by the Prime Minister. The gist of the Secretary of State's argument was that Parliament has important work to do and that on parliamentary standards and the economy, only this Parliament can clear up its own mess. That, of course, is not remotely true. In each case, the decisions that are to be made are so serious and public approval for them so essential that they would be far better carried out after all the debate, explanation, discussion and transparency that only a general election can bring. The Government's argument is that it is impossible to interrupt proceedings for even a month for a general election, but that we can interrupt them for nearly three months for the summer recess. If Parliament is engaged in such important work at the moment, why is there so little business before the House of Commons this month? Why have a last Session of Parliament, beginning this autumn, that can be only a few months in length? If we work it out, we see that perhaps a maximum of 14 weeks might be available in which legislation can be considered. What has happened to the important legislation that was going through Parliament in this Session, some of which has mysteriously disappeared—namely, the Bill to allow part-privatisation of the Royal Mail? Lord Mandelson, to whom I believe we must now deferentially refer as the First Secretary of State, has said of the Postal Services Bill:""It would be irresponsible of the Government to allow delays to the…measures needed to reform Royal Mail and secure the future of the universal postal service…Any delay would merely serve to threaten the sustainability of the network."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 May 2009; Vol. 710, c. 848.]" The Government's case against the dissolution of Parliament would be much stronger if they even knew whether and when they want to proceed with a measure that they have said can stand no delay and that is meant to be before Parliament now. In mentioning Lord Mandelson, I did not mean to send a chill down the spine of Ministers, but it is now impossible to discuss the operation of government or Parliament without reference to his opinions. The unelected Prime Minister has managed to produce the most powerful unelected deputy since Henry VIII appointed Cardinal Wolsey—except that Cardinal Wolsey was more sensitive in his handling of colleagues than the noble Lord Mandelson is. His personal retinue of 11 Ministers, six of whom attend on him in the House of Lords, is the largest in the Government. The growth of the unelected portion of Her Majesty's Government is further evidence of the need for the dissolution of Parliament. We also need the fresh air of electoral competition to blow through the dark recesses of several Departments. The Prime Minister who lectures us all on democratic renewal is appointing peers to positions of power on a scale unknown for decades. There are now more peers attending the Cabinet than at any time since the days of Harold Macmillan. Half the Ministers in the Foreign Office now sit in the House of Lords or are about to do so, including no less a figure than the new Minister for Europe. So after years in which hon. Members in all parts of the House have called for better democratic scrutiny of EU decision making, we have arrived at a situation where elected Members of Parliament will be unable to question the Minister for Europe at all and where, a week before an important EU summit, the Minister is not available to either House of Parliament. That is not democratic renewal, but democratic reversal by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister who told us today about the importance of accountability and legitimacy has just managed to appoint an enterprise tsar in Sir Alan Sugar, but no one seems to know whether he will have Government machinery reporting to him. Apparently, moreover, he, too, cannot be questioned in either House of Parliament at all. The Lord Mandelson, denied the opportunity to become Foreign Secretary by the sad combination of a Prime Minister too weak to remove his Foreign Secretary and, equally, a Foreign Secretary too weak to challenge the Prime Minister, has gone around instead collecting titles and even whole Departments to add to his name. His title now adds up to, "The right hon. the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills". It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and find that he had become an archbishop—[Laughter]. That is exactly what happened with Cardinal Wolsey. We are left with a Government held together solely by fear. The Prime Minister is unable to remove Ministers in whom he has lost faith, for fear that they will quit altogether; Ministers are unwilling to challenge a Prime Minister in whom they have lost faith, for fear that they will no longer be Ministers; Labour Back Benchers are unwilling to remove a Prime Minister in whom they have certainly lost faith, for fear of having to have an election—and all of them are living in fear of one Minister with a very long title for whom, at the last election, no one in the country ever voted at all. That is the situation. The Government are locked together in an embrace of mutual terror and diminished legitimacy, but their refusal to face the voters can no longer be defended. There comes a point when democratic renewal is indeed necessary, and the country knows and understands that that is now. The Prime Minister has made a statement today on constitutional reform in an effort to justify his continuation in office. Leave aside the transparent desperation and sheer unadulterated cynicism of looking to a referendum on voting reform only when he has seemingly lost hope of retaining power under the voting rules prevailing today, the fact that the referendum on the European constitution that he promised in the last general election manifesto has never been held at all and the fact that progress on House of Lords reform has been stymied by indecision or indifference during his term of office so far, whatever the history of these proposals and whatever their merits, a Prime Minister at this stage of a Parliament can command the real authority to implement such changes only by including them in a general election manifesto and asking the country to approve them. But the Prime Minister's objective is not to strengthen constitutional change by winning a mandate for it in a general election. Instead, it is to avert a general election by coming up with proposals for constitutional change—the exact reverse of true democratic accountability and legitimacy in government. No set of proposals can now overcome the fact that this is a Parliament that has lost its moral authority, and that the Government derived from that Parliament have lost the unity, authority and confidence to govern in the national interest. The events of the last eight days, in which 11 Ministers have resigned from the Government, have summed up for most voters the sense of decay and division that makes them want to be consulted about the future. The words of resigning Ministers speak for themselves—they require no embellishment by the Opposition. The right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) said:""I have been unhappy about smears against colleagues, the undermining of colleagues and friends by No. 10"." The right hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) said to the Prime Minister:""I am calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning"." The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said:""Several of the women attending Cabinet…have been treated by you as little more than female window dressing...you have strained every sinew of…loyalty"." The hon. Member for Northampton, North, whom I cited earlier, has said that""the person at the top has to forge a group of strong politicians into a united, coherent team to provide stable government. And that has, painfully, not happened either."" The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said:""Even I didn't think a Brown administration would be as inept as this one"." The quotes go on, and they come from Labour Members. It is not necessary to read them all out—it is almost impossible to do so in the time available. It is impossible to recall, even from the dark and dying days of other Administrations, such condemnation of a Government from within their own ranks.