Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title A Bill to make provision about the dissolution and calling of Parliament, including provision for the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011; and for connected purposes.
Citation	HC Bill 008 2021–22
Considered by	Parliament of the United Kingdom
Legislative history
Introduced by	Michael Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Commons) Lord True, Minister of State for the Cabinet Office (Lords)
First reading	12 May 2021
Repeals
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019[1]
Status: Pending

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill,^[2][3] originally drafted as the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill, is a proposed Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that would repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. It would reinstate the constitutional situation before that Act by reviving the prerogative powers of the monarch to dissolve and summon parliament.^[4] Announced formally in the 2021 State Opening of Parliament,^[5] it received its first reading on 12 May 2021.^[6] It was introduced by Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove.

The Bill would fulfil the Government's manifesto promise to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.^[7] Prior to the 2019 United Kingdom general election, the Labour Party also pledged to repeal the Act.^[8] In response to the 2019 prorogation controversy, the Bill emphasises the non-justiciability of the revived prerogative powers.^[4] This would prevent courts from making certain rulings in relation to a Government's power to dissolve Parliament.^[9]

An earlier private member's bill titled the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill was introduced by Lord Mancroft in the House of Lords in February 2020, but did not proceed beyond first reading.^[10]

Provisions[]

The Bill would repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (clause 1) and would revive the powers relating to the dissolution and calling of Parliaments derived from the royal prerogative "as if the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 had never been enacted" (clause 2), in effect restoring the constitutional situation prior to 2011. Clause 3, an ouster clause, would remove questions over the exercise of these powers, over any decision relating to them, and over their limits and extent from the jurisdiction of courts and tribunals. Finally, the Bill would provide for Parliament's automatic dissolution once five years have elapsed from its first meeting after an election (clause 4).^[11]

Legislative history[]

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill was introduced by Michael Gove, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, to the House of Commons and received its first reading on 12 May 2021.^[6]

Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act[]

The original draft of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill was published on 1 December 2020 for consideration by the parliamentary Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.^[7] In evidence submitted to the Joint Committee from December 2020 to January 2021, legal experts highlighted a number of contentious points in the legal implications of the Bill. One of these was whether the power of dissolution created by the Bill would in fact be derived from the royal prerogative, or whether it would be a statutory power. The Sydney constitutional law professor Anne Twomey argued that the Bill could not revive the royal prerogative by definition, since a prerogative is a non-statutory executive power and common law is created by courts and not legislatures. Cambridge public law professor Alison Young stated that the matter was unclear. In contrast, the former Supreme Court judges Baroness Hale and Lord Sumption, as well as a former First Parliamentary Counsel, Stephen Laws, held that the prerogative could be restored by Parliament.^[12]

Secondly, some specialists questioned the validity of the Bill's ouster clause. Lord Lisvane and Malcolm Jack, both former Clerks of the House of Commons, as well as Alison Young, argued that the clause may fail in practice, with Lord Lisvane describing its wording as "a probably doomed attempt to sidestep the Anisminic principle".^[12][13] Lord Sumption argued that though a "sufficiently desperate" court could likely find a way to circumvent the ouster clause, its presence in the Bill should serve to discourage such attempts.^[12]

The Joint Committee published its report on the Bill on 24 March 2021. The majority of the Committee held that the ouster clause was acceptable given that "Parliament should be able to designate certain matters as ones which are to be resolved in the political rather than the judicial sphere", and could not be considered an overreach of executive authority since "the power in question is to enable the electorate to determine who should hold power". On the issue of the prerogative, the Committee held that the wording of the Bill was sufficient to restore the substance, if not necessarily the form, of the constitutional situation prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The Committee also recommended that the draft be retitled the Dissolution and Summoning of Parliament Bill, considering that the Bill would be a fundamental constitutional statute and would do more than simply repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.^[14]

The Committee also considered whether the monarch ought to have the power to refuse a request from the prime minister to dissolve Parliament.^[15] In its statement of principles accompanying the draft bill, the government had stated that "in future Parliament will be dissolved by the Sovereign, on the advice of the Prime Minister".^[4] In the system preceding the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, however, dissolution was requested, not advised, by the prime minister, meaning that the monarch reserved the right to decline the request. The Committee called on the government to "make it clear that the power to grant or refuse a dissolution returns to the Monarch, who in exceptional cases, may refuse the request".^[15]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Robert Blackburn (1989). "The summoning and meeting of new Parliaments in the United Kingdom". Legal Studies. 9 (2): 165–176. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.1989.tb00392.x.

External links[]

• Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill
• Text of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011