Talk:Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

the Act and current events

Discussions currently (summer-ish of '19) rage that concerns this act: mainly regarding the possibility of using an early general election to prevent Parliament from interfering with government during a few critical weeks (if I understand it correctly?). I would like it if this article explained the issues and how they pertain to this Act. (I haven't looked at the various Brexit articles here on Wikipedia to see if they might have any useful passages to lift) CapnZapp (talk) 08:36, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I expect this article will see increased traffic as a result of current events. Some readers may post questions on this talk page as has happened in the past. I guess we could increase the level of detail in the article about the general functioning of the Act. For instance, there's a good flowchart in this BBC article which usefully includes the possibility of a government losing a no-confidence vote and then winning a second one, hence remaining in office.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the issues and how they pertain to this Act". We would need to be careful of WP:CRYSTAL speculation if we try to describe things that might happen. I don't think we can write a section on "The Act and Brexit" until after events have occurred.

An early election could certainly create a hiatus preventing parliament from legislating. However, since it is now parliament that decides the timing of elections it is difficult to see how an early election could be used to frustrate parliament's wishes. Such a scenario was possible before 2011 when the Prime Minister could call an election at will.

In essence there is nothing unusual about the current situation as regards the Act. A government risks losing a no-confidence vote resulting in an alternative government or an early election, something which is always the case. It's true that parliament may not have time before the October 31st deadline to use a general election to form a new government that will carry out its wishes. However, the Act allows parliament to form a new government without an election instead if it so desires. - Polly Tunnel (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

One interesting point that might come up is that team Boris has hinted that, if they lose a no-confidence vote, their only legal obligation is to schedule a new election within the parameters of the Act (which, given the parliamentary calendar, will probably place any such date after October 31). Even if some alternate anti-Brexit unity PM can cobble together a parliamentary majority within the two-week window, Boris doesn't have a legal obligation to advise the queen to appoint that person PM. To do so would of course have have been in line with longstanding convention, but there are arguments that the Fixed-Term Act has changed the game. I'll see if I can find any of the reporting on this.

This is not quite current events, but I've also seen arguments that part of the blame for May's Brexit flameout is that PMs no longer have the ability to declare votes on important government bills to be votes of confidence in the gov't. Before the Fixed-Term Act, May could've basically said that she would call a new election if the bill failed, which would be expected to bring fence-sitting Tories in line who didn't like the Brexit bill but also didn't want new elections. Under the current situation, Brixteers could both refuse to give the government the votes it wanted and also refuse to vote to for an early election to try to get a more cooperative parliament. It's interesting that much of the stated reasoning for the bill was to prevent a strong government from calling early elections at beneficial times but as events have shown it actually prevents a weak government from doing the same. --Jfruh (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you - this is exactly the sort of impact I had in mind CapnZapp (talk) 20:18, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Here we go: "But as Mr. Cummings has let it be known, even if a rival were to attract enough support to form a government, the prime minister could legally call for a general election and refuse to vacate Downing Street. The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011, which guides the procedures for a no-confidence vote, does not specifically require prime ministers to step aside at that point, even if custom and respect for democratic norms would seem to dictate that they should." Since Cummings is Johnson's chief strategist, this seems pretty relevant. Not sure where this should go in the article though; if someone wants to have a go at integrating it, feel free. --Jfruh (talk) 15:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. My concern is that Dominic Cummings is a political strategist with vested interest in a particular outcome rather than an impartial constitutional law expert. The view of Dominic Grieve as a former attorney general probably has more weight. Robert Saunders is at least an academic, but he doesn't say anything much other than pointing out that we don't know what will happen.

The article says that "Cummings has let it be known, even if a rival were to attract enough support to form a government, the prime minister could legally call for a general election and refuse to vacate Downing Street". I'm not quite sure what he means. A prime minister can no longer call a general election – it requires a House of Commons motion to do that. I suppose Cummings might mean that a prime minister could put forward such a motion (which parliament might reject) or that a prime minister could simply wait for the two-week negotiation period to expire. I haven't yet come across any sources for either interpretation.

The "failure" of the Act not to regulate the change of prime minister is in all probability quite intentional. The Act denies the Sovereign one of her key reserved powers – dissolution of parliament – and she may have been reluctant to lose another – the right to appoint and dismiss prime ministers.

At this stage it all sounds like WP:POV and WP:CRYSTAL speculation, a process that the article itself calls "armchair constitutional theorizing" and "fantasies". As things stand we don't even have a Cummings quote to work with, just "Cummings has let it be known..." which The Times describes as "Cummings... told colleagues last week". Personally I'd rather wait until either expert opinion or events give us something reliable to use on how the Act may work in practice following a successful no-confidence vote. But if we are to put Cummings' alleged views into the article I suspect they would fit best under "Attempted and contemplated uses of the Act".

Polly Tunnel (talk) 16:35, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

It all seems pretty unclear. E.g. [1] suggests:

"Let’s assume then that the Confidence vote is lost, ...

Still, let’s run with that because it’s where the uncertainty lies (if Johnson wins the vote, he and his policy become effectively untouchable until a new VoNC). Some have suggested that Johnson should (or even must) resign if it’s likely that someone else could command a majority government. These suggestions miss the point that while constitutional convention indicates that he should, the law does not – again, we’re in a rules vs spirit of the game contest.

So can he simply sit things through, using the government’s powers (and he would still be PM, despite the defeat), to see off challenges? I don’t think so – though again, we’d be piling crisis on crisis. Some of his supporters assert that a PM, defeated in a confidence vote, has always had the choice of resigning or seeking an election and hence it’s perfectly legitimate to ‘choose’ an election under the FtPA by shutting down debate and running down the clock. The assertion, unsurprisingly, is wrong. A PM – especially one that parliament has just rejected – has never had the right to a dissolution, just the right to request it. The Queen has the power to say ‘no’, and the Lascelles Principles define when she should do so.

It had been assumed that the FtPA put Lascelles into abeyance but if a PM sought to argue a right to an election (and hence a right to block parliamentary action within the 14 days), then they come back into play. In effect, if the monarch is confident that another government could be formed from within the existing parliament then she would be within her right – indeed, it would be her duty – to dismiss the PM and invite that alternative person to form a government. Even so, politicians usually avoid bringing the Queen directly into politics; this would be to drag her right to the centre of the storm – something that she’d hate (but then that’s the point: if the Palace is reluctant to act then that favours the forces of inertia)."

crandles (talk) 19:12, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, it almost seems like if people thought the Lascelles Principles were important they should've been made part of the law instead [checks notes] laid out in a letter to the editor of The Times, written under a pseudonym. --Jfruh (talk) 19:36, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Sources

These sources could be useful to expand the article, since they discuss procedures directly impacted by the Act.

Labour MP says party won't agree to an election before Brexit deadline

LIVE: Labour 'not voting for an election today', says Sir Keir Starmer | Politics News | Sky News

Especially if we can find a source explaining how the PM decides the date for a general election, and how this could impact Parliament's ability to stave off No-Deal.

CapnZapp (talk) 09:12, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

the-fixed-term-parliaments-act-has-made-the-brexit-mess-even-worse

snap-general-election-uk-what-meaning-rules-boris-johnson-2019-fixed-term-parliaments

Nicholas Aylott, political expert believes Johnson will try to change the Act (in Swedish)

More source suggestions... CapnZapp (talk) 10:25, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Johnson could try to bypass the super-majority hurdle by putting down a new piece of legislation that would effectively override the current election law. A one-line bill would suffice, saying something along the lines of "notwithstanding the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the election will be held on day X."

Boris Johnson's Brexit options are so bad that he might have to call a no-confidence vote in himself — Preceding unsigned comment added by CapnZapp (talk • contribs) 14:07, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

BBC News comments on the option of a one-line bill:

"The advantage of this route - from the government's point of view - is that it would only require a simple majority of MPs to support it rather than two-thirds.

But it would also need to clear all stages in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. That means there's a risk the law could be sabotaged if MPs or peers propose changes to the wording."

Edgington, Tom (22 October 2019). "Could there be an early general election?". BBC News. Retrieved 22 October 2019.

Just a risk ... ? Errantius (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

A quote:

Grieve said that the fixed-term parliaments act 2011 – which makes it harder for a prime minister to call a general election at a time that is convenient for them – was a terrible piece of legislation, which he regrets. Former Tory culture secretary John Whittingdale, appearing on Sky just now, said he agreed with Grieve on the fixed-term parliaments act. He said that the 31 October deadline would probably be missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/oct/23/boris-johnsons-brexit-bill-in-limbo-as-eu-leaders-mull-extension-request-politics-live?page=with:block-5daff4768f08142786c501a6#block-5daff4768f08142786c501a6 CapnZapp (talk) 08:47, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Critiques

1) Who is Junade Ali (please don't explain it to me here at talk; properly introduce a person mentioned by the article). 2) Sources appear to be WP:PRIMARY (yes even the additional one). Again reverted pending discussion here on talk (or WP:SECONDARY sources establishing importance, relevance, notability of this written evidence. My best regards CapnZapp (talk) 22:30, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Your reversion unfortunately overrode some changes to include the evidence from Robert Craig and reverted a grammatical bug where the sentence ends with a colon. I've merged the changes to preserve your footnotes but remove any edits that were stampeded upon. Such sources are not primary as they are not directly associated to those who introduced the legislation, further it is of fundamental importance in critiques to understand evidence provided for review by the relevant Parliamentary committee (note that this section contains some substandard sources like someone writing on a political betting blog). The critiques are clearly supported by two evidential submissions to a parliamentary enquiry (which the committee has chosen to publish) alongside being cross published by the University of Oxford. Information on the individuals who submitted such evidence is clearly provided in the sources, but is not of relevance as the more important matter is the fact of what the Lords Constitution Committee has chosen to publish as evidence when reviewing the Act. Mjsa (talk) 09:56, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Mjsa: Sure, just as long as we agree that has very little to do with the concerns specific to including this material on Wikipedia. CapnZapp (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

To everyone reading this: Who is Junadi Ali and why is his evidence worthy of inclusion? (The article should make this clear to the reader) The sources only confirm the existence of the evidence, which is not enough. The section is - as far as I can see - lacking in independent trustworthy sources confirming its relevance or importance.

Again to you, User:Mjsa: if you don't know what I'm talking about I encourage you to ask at the Help Desk or at the Teahouse - feel free to direct helpful editors to this talk page and have them look at my posts, that should give them the context they need to explain to you what improvements need to be done. Have a nice day CapnZapp (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for the slow reply, joint commentary by Graham Allen and Andrew Blick has been included (his own academic paper that someone else included is left cited in a previous paragraph). Necessary citations for the role of Graham Allen as The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee who scrutinised the Act have been added from Hansard and BBC. The reference to his essay in the book Junade Ali has edited - and I've accordingly noted the relationship of both (Allen authoring the book and Ali as the editor). I believe that makes the Blick/Allen/Ali critiques the best referenced in the critiques section. Mjsa (talk) 06:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Following this - I've noticed that the Robert Blackburn QC critique is purely referencing his Parliamentary oral evidence, Alastair Meeks criticism is purely self-authored and is weak academic evidence without peer review, the Andrew Blick reference to David Allen Green's paragraph is irrelevant (the only source is a self-authored blog post) and the post itself is self-authored in the Financial Times. Similarly Lord Norton's evidence is purely self-authored (but in a peer-reviewed academic blog post - unlike others). That said, as all critiques are noted as such and attributed to their authors - this appears to be in compliance of WP:RSOPINION (and is not an article on a living person). However, if you are aware of other Wikipedia-specific rules that make such sources unsuitable, the entire critiques section should likely be rewritten. Mjsa (talk) 06:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Circumventing the Act

We really need to cover the fact that you can go around the supermajority requirement of the Act by instead amending the act itself, something that only requires a regular majority. How should we phrase this, and where on the page does this fit? Refs: [2] [3] [4] CapnZapp (talk) 23:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

You "can"? I think we have to see what the Speaker does with this. He might rule that it defeats the purpose of the Act, so isn't a mere amendment. If he says that it amounts to suspension of the Act, that might require more notice. Errantius (talk) 04:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, it's been done without amendment and evidently the Speaker determined that the bill did not legally conflict with the FTPA. What amounts to a legal conflict of this kind is a highly technical matter and to be carefully distinguished from political conflict. I've put in your non-legal term "circumvent". Errantius (talk) 01:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Note: I did not attempt a legal term, and do not believe they must be used in Wikipedia articles. That said, I noticed the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 article uses the phrase "excludes the normal operation of". CapnZapp (talk) 07:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

We seem to be in broad agreement. But "excludes the normal operation of" is vague and at any rate too wide, because the 2019 Act does not exclude the timing provisions of the FTPA, so that the next election after 2019 will not now be in 2022 but in 2024 (assuming that the FTPA isn't changed or repealed, which must be getting discussed). I've changed the EPGEA article accordingly. Anyhow, with thanks to those who have built it, that article is still a stub. Errantius (talk) 12:35, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

"The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 circumvents the FTPA, providing for an election on 12 December 2019." Not sure it "circumvents" the Act: instead it fully complies with it, by treating 12 December 2019 as a day appointed under section 2(7) of it (i.e. the FTPA). aspaa (talk) 20:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Maybe something along the lines of "The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 establishes a one-time alteration of the schedule set by the FTPA, mandating an election on 12 December 2019 and defining that date as a day appointed under section 2(7) of the FTPA"? --Jfruh (talk) 22:25, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Also, I want to briefly speak to CapnZapp's point above that "you can go around the supermajority requirement of the Act by instead amending the act itself, something that only requires a regular majority." It's not quite as simple as that, as recent events have demonstrated. Both a vote of no confidence and the 2/3 vote needed to hold an early election are motions, not laws. They only require the House of Commons to hold a vote on the subject, and that vote only needs to happen once. Immediately upon either type of vote passing successfully in the House of Commons, the schedule is set for dissolution of parliament and a new election (though in the case of a vote of confidence there's a two-week window in which it could rescinded).

Something like the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, on the other hand, is a law, and in order to pass it needs to go through all the stages of ordinary legislation, which include multiple votes in both the Commons and the Lords, and then it needs to receive royal assent. (The law could be ultimately passed under the procedure outlined in the Parliament Acts even if the Lords reject it, but that would involve significant delay.) Even under the streamlined procedure which was used in this case, the whole process takes several days and eats up a lot of parliamentary time. So while it's true that in the end you can eventually get an early election so long as 50%+1 vote of the Commons are determined to have one, in practice this process as nowhere near as swift or clean as the others, and leaves room for political wrangling and, if an early election is controversial, MPs to get cold feet.

I hope to have at least given a hint of this in my rewritten lede, and I think we could stand to talk about it more explicitly later in the article. --Jfruh (talk) 22:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Supermajority

The term "supermajority" is used without any reference or explanation, as in "On 4 September there were 298 votes for the motion and 56 against, but this was well short of the two-thirds supermajority required due to mass abstention by the opposition." At first sight 298 votes out of the total 354 is significantly more than a two-thirds majority, yet the motion fell because fewer than two-thirds of those people eligible to vote supported it. This is an important distinction and should be explained more clearly and cited. 87.75.117.183 (talk) 13:31, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Supermajority now explained and linked, pending a formal reference. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 10:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Jfruh, the article now defines supermajority to be two-thirds (and links to the concept for a more general introduction) per this talk section. The reason for my change was to not use the term before the explanation; this way the explanation comes at the first instance of its use, which realistically will have to be the lead. CapnZapp (talk) 12:26, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Jfruh, you have now twice used the edit summary to convey your opinion in this matter. But this circumvents this talk page. I have therefore edited the page with no regard for your views, since you have apparently chosen not to engage with the WP:CYCLE. I invite you to repeat your stance, here, if you feel left out. Best regards, CapnZapp (talk) 19:47, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been busy and haven't had a chance to reply. I will repeat that I don't think it's necessary to give an in-depth definition "supermajority" on first reference in the lede -- it's a normal English word and we can wikilink for the very curious. I would point out that the IP user above isn't saying that supermajority as a general concept needs to be defined, but rather is requesting an explanation of why 298 votes out of 354 -- which is 84% of the votes cast -- doesn't constitute a 2/3 supermajority as defined by the Act. The reason, it turns out, is because dissolution requires 2/3 of the whole membership of the house to vote yes, regardless of how many actually vote; see here for more info.

Anyway, what do you think of this text as a rewritten version of the paragraph under discussion. I'm trying to prune out some paranetheticals because they break up the flow of the article.

The Act sets out the timetables for parliamentary general elections and dissolution of parliament. Under the Act, the next general election is, in the absence of other parliamentary intervention, automatically scheduled for the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election (or the fourth if the date of the previous election was before the first Thursday in May). An earlier election can, per the Act, take place if the House of Commons passes a vote of no confidence in the government by simple majority, or if a supermajority constituting two-thirds of the entire Commons votes to approve an early election; an earlier election can also take place if parliament passes a law setting a new election date, bypassing the Act.

--Jfruh (talk) 06:28, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Rewritten lede

Hello all. I've been following the sometimes contentious discussion here on the lede to this article, especially regard to how we approach the idea of a "fixed term" in the meaning of this act. I tried to rewrite the lede so that it both acknowledges that the ability to set arbitrary election dates has been significantly curtailed by the Act, and that the parliamentary terms are still not truly "fixed" in the sense that people living in countries where election dates cannot be moved by ordinary legislation would understand. I also rearranged some of the material, which has accrued piecemeal over the last two eventful years, to make more logical and chronological sense. Let me know what you think. --Jfruh (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, what are these countries where the elections cannot be moved by ordinary legislation? In other Westminster style parliamentary democracies that have fixed term parliaments, they are normally fixed by legislation and so can be changed by legislation (since Parliament does not bind itself). --49.255.185.235 (talk) 22:22, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

In the United States, federal office holders have both the lengths of the terms and the dates when their terms begin actually set in the constitution. Congress could change the date of elections, but to change the length or starting/ending dates of the terms of office themselves would require a constitutional amendment. See Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Historical_background for more details. --23:56, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

In general, User:49.255.185.235, see Fixed-term election for plenty of examples. Take Sweden for instance: elections take place every four years, but there is a mechanism which leads to "extra" elections (that truly are extra as in additional - the four-year schedule does not budge)

From an American perspective, this whole discussion might seem strange: why call terms fixed when they... aren't? It is useful to note that (together with Norway) the US is NOT the norm and in fact an outlier in that there really are zero ways to budge the fixed terms. EVERY other country (if that article is correct) has SOME way to tweak the schedule, as it were. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:40, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Technically the US has a way to tweak the schedule too; it's just so complex we only did it once, when we passed the 20th amendment. :) --Jfruh (talk) 06:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)