Gavin Phillipson | The Constitution Unit Blog

Next week MPs debate the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which seeks to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) and revive the former prerogative power of dissolution. Meg Russell, Gavin Phillipson and Petra Schleiter, all of whom gave evidence to the parliamentary committees considering FTPA repeal, argue that the government’s bill is flawed. It seeks to keep the courts out of dissolution decisions, but risks drawing them in, and risks politicising the role of the monarch. Removing the House of Commons power over when a general election is held, and returning it to the Prime Minister, would be a retrograde step.

On 13 September, MPs debate the remaining stages of the government’s Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which seeks to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) and revive the former prerogative power of dissolution. Three parliamentary committees have considered FTPA repeal, to which all of us have submitted evidence. This post summarises key flaws in the government’s approach identified by the committees, and areas where expert evidence suggested solutions to address these flaws.

The post does not argue for retention of the FTPA. Instead it proposes a solution to the problems with the bill that would leave parliament at the heart of decision-making. It makes three key points:

While aiming to exclude the courts from the question of dissolution, the government’s bill instead potentially draws them in.
Placing sole reliance on the monarch as a check generates uncertainty, and risks politicising their role.
The solution to both of these problems is to retain a requirement for the House of Commons to vote on the Prime Minister’s request for a general election by simple majority. Concerns that this could recreate the 2019 Brexit deadlock are groundless.

Our core argument is that maintaining the Commons’ ultimate control over dissolution, while fixing the defects of the 2011 Act, would be a better solution.

The bill seeks to exclude the courts from dissolution but risks drawing them

The bill’s central objective is to return the power to dissolve parliament to the monarch, to be granted on the Prime Minister’s request – that is, to restore the pre-FTPA status quo. Clause 3 (‘Non-justiciability of revived prerogative powers’, commonly referred to as the ‘ouster clause’) seeks to exclude the courts from considering cases relating to dissolution. The courts have never intervened in dissolution decisions (the 2019 Supreme Court case was on prorogation, which is different). But inclusion of the clause suggests that the government perceives some risk of judicial intervention if it attempts to revive the prerogative.

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On Monday 22 May the Constitution Unit hosted a debate on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Against the backdrop of an early general election and a Conservative manifesto promise to scrap the Act, Carl Gardner and Professor Gavin Phillipson (Durham) argued the merits of the Act and the potential legal implications of its repeal. Kasim Khorasanee reports.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was enacted under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to regulate when general elections were held. Previously general elections were required at least every five years but their exact timing was a matter of royal prerogative, in practice exercised by the Prime Minister. The Act fixed the length of each session of the House of Commons, unless an early general election could be called. The Act set out two mechanisms to call an early general election. The first – which was relied upon to call the 2017 general election – required at least two thirds of the Commons (434 MPs) to vote in favour of an early general election. The second was triggered if a no confidence motion was passed by the Commons and not reversed within 14 days.

Carl Gardner

Carl Gardner, a former government lawyer, led the defence of the status quo ante. He began by highlighting the risks in allowing politicians the freedom to redraw constitutional rules – both in terms of unintended consequences and selfish intent. The Act was a key case in point. Nick Clegg, as Deputy Prime Minister, had made the case for the Act by suggesting fixed terms would bring greater stability to the political system and allow politicians to focus on governing by removing the distracting uncertainty around election timings. In practice the intense speculation over whether Theresa May would call a general election in late 2016, followed by her surprise announcement to do so in mid-2017, had demonstrated the flaws in Clegg’s arguments. Gardner drew attention to David Laws’ book 22 Days in May which underlined the fact that the Act had been drawn up as a calculated political compromise designed to stabilise the coalition government in power.

Gardner went on to argue that the British constitution’s complexity and nuance had been underestimated by reformists. He noted that the Prime Minister had never been able to call elections ‘on demand’, they had always required the monarch’s explicit authorisation to do so. Furthermore there had never been popular discontent at the calling of elections or any suggestion of Prime Ministers ‘abusing’ their powers in doing so. The Act had also introduced uncertainty with respect to no confidence motions. Firstly, it was unclear whether in the 14 days after a statutory no-confidence motion the Prime Minister would be under a duty to resign, or whether they would be free to work to reverse the motion. Secondly, votes which previously might have been understood as matters of confidence – budgets, the Queen’s speech, going to war – appeared to have been stripped of this effect. Whereas Tony Blair understood losing the 2003 Iraq War vote would have meant resigning, David Cameron happily carried on after losing the 2013 Syria intervention vote. Gardner suggested that the duty for Prime Ministers to resign once they had lost the confidence of the Commons had been eroded by the Act.

Finally, on the legality of repealing the Act, Gardner asserted that where common law or prerogative powers were overridden by statute, revoking the statute would have the effect of ‘reviving’ the previous common law or prerogative. In support of this he cited the High Court decision in the famous GCHQ Case (R v The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs ex parte Council of Civil Service Unions and another [1984] IRLR 309 [73]). Although legislation such as Section 16(1) of the Interpretation Act 1978 appeared designed to prevent this reviving effect, it could be overridden by a clear expression of parliament’s will.

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