Four years good, five years bad

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The government is facing another Lords fight over its plans for fixed-term parliaments, predicts Baroness Jay.

Through a process best described as parliamentary attrition, the government finally passed the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill last week.

The coalition may have steered its plans for an AV referendum and a reduction in and equalisation of Commons constituencies through the Lords relatively unscathed, but the constitutional tussling is far from over.

Next week, when MPs and peers return from their midterm break, the fixed-term parliament bill has its second reading in the Lords.

The bill, which has passed all its Commons stages, aims to set the date of every future general election, a controversial proposal in a system where calling an election is a key prime ministerial decision.

The Lords constitution committee has already given its verdict on the bill- it is fair to say they are not fans.

Committee chair Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords, recently met ePolitix.com in one of the opulent refreshment rooms in the upper House, to run through its multiple shortcomings.

First of all, it would create five year parliaments, with the next election set for May 2015.

"One of the points that has been made to us in evidence is that if you wanted just to have a five year parliament for this period, to establish a national government and carry out their economic programme, you could have done that by moving standing orders, Commons procedure, without having a fixed-term parliament bill," Baroness Jay said.

"Then there is the basic constitutional principle that one parliament cannot bind another," she adds.

The Baroness says it is "perfectly possible it will be repealed" by a future, presumably Labour government.

Her party has considered fixed-term parliaments in the past, but she insists that if it was a four year term that would be more broadly supported.

Jay says four years "sits more with the actual pragmatic history - we have seen that in the report.

"There were a few people on the committee who were happy with five years, but the rest were unhappy."

The coalition has claimed this new bill will remove the Royal prerogative power to dissolve Parliament from the hands of the prime minister.

The committee points out in its report that this is not the case.

Jay says that in practice the mechanism related to a "vote of confidence" against the government triggering a search for a "viable government" within 14 days, means a prime minister can still bring down his own government and force an election.

"It is still actually at the discretion of the PM," she says.

In short, it would not be possible to prevent a government using a vote of no confidence to bring about an early election.

There is also genuine unease about the lack of consultation on major constitutional change by the coalition government.

"That is the headline of all of our reports since the election," Jay says.

"When we have taken evidence from the deputy prime minister and others in government, it is clear they have refused the preliminaries - green paper, pre-legislative scrutiny.

"They have not been dealt with, they never even thought about doing it.

"I am not quite sure what this is about."

Jay claims such haste would not have been seen in under a purely Tory government, because the political imperative of the coalition is to get their agreed agenda through Parliament.

She can claim to know a thing or two about shepherding major constitutional reform through the upper House.

Jay, 71, is the daughter of Labour prime minister James Callaghan.

As leader of the Lords from 1998 to 2001, she secured the removal of hereditary peers in 1999.

Jay dismisses complaints that new Labour peers are acting in a partisan, rude and aggressive manner, contrary the way things are done in the Lords.

"There has been a great influx of former MPs," she says.

"I think the Labour party is now in Opposition, and they have taken an enthusiastic approach.

"They can tease people like Tom NcNally, who are former Labour people and now on what we would call the Tory frontbench."

She adds that when the hereditaries were being removed, they certainly didn't go quietly.

Jay took took her seat in 1992, when the ceremony was "much more elaborate"."

"It went on for about 12 minutes - we used to call it the square dance - you had to walk up to the back of the speaking area up the steps and then back down."

New peers these days have it easy - they are normally introduced in under a minute - which is handy given the number of new peers appointed by Gordon Brown and then David Cameron.

Jay thinks it "ridiculous" that membership of the Lords will soon stand at around 800.

"One of the virtues or outcomes of the 1999 Act was to reduce it to a manageable number, including the 92 elected hereditaries," she explains.

"I was always in favour of appointing people for a set length of time probably 15 years, you could call yourself Baroness Jay for life but would serve in the house for a certain amount of time."

Reform of the House of Lords also forms part of the coalition agreement.

David Cameron has never been that keen, once describing Lords reform as "a third term priority".

The Lib Dems are hoping that by the time of the next election, May 2015 by their reckoning, there will be an elected upper House.

Jay concludes that, if they are to have a Royal Commission on the matter, and there is no consensus in the Lords, change is unlikely to happen in this Parliament.

"I prefer 80 per cent elected, I have always voted for that," she adds.

"One of my bits of empirical change of mind has been from being theoretically in favour of 100 per cent elected.

"Over the years I have become convinced of the role of some of the crossbench peers, especially those who are experts.

"It has been enormously important in the scrutiny of legislation.

"Their enormous authority is very valuable.

"They are not people who would ever stand for election, it is not part of their professional game plan."

We can expect many of those experts to make their objections to the fixed-term Parliament bill known when it comes before the Lords for second reading next Tuesday.