Written evidence submitted by Professor
Robert Blackburn, King's College London
Professor Blackburn is Professor of Constitutional
Law, and Director of the Centre for Political and Constitutional
Studies at King's College London.
INTRODUCTION
1. Earlier this month I forwarded to the
Committee my article, The 2010 General Election Outcome and
Formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government,
giving a history and constitutional analysis of the five days
in May, when the outcome of the election was uncertain and negotiations
were taking place between the political parties on the formation
of the new government. In this written evidence, I offer some
thoughts on the political circumstances and constitutional framework
within which the events of May 2010 took place and the implications
of what happened. My aim is to help inform the Committee's deliberations
and contribute to their lines of inquiry on the lessons to be
learnt from what occurred.
ASPECTS AND
SPECIAL FEATURES
OF THE
2010 ELECTION AND
ITS OUTCOME
2. The UK system of parliamentary government
is majoritarian in culture. Generally under our simple plurality
voting system, there is an overall majority in the House of Commons
for one party, giving its leader the right to enter 10 Downing
Street. Therefore, the fact of the hung Parliament and the coalition
it produced is of considerable political and historical significance,
and what happened in May 2010 will serve to mould ideas and expectations
about the future.
3. It is almost 80 years since the last
peace-time coalition was formed, and it is 65 years since the
end of Winston Churchill's coalition formed for the purposes of
fighting the Second World War. It is the only coalition government
to have been appointed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
4. The arithmetic of the 2010 election result
could hardly have thrown up a more difficult political and constitutional
equation for the parties to deal with.
UK GENERAL ELECTION RESULT, 2010
| (a) | (b) Votes (000s)
| (c) % vote | (d) Seats won
|
| (e) Conservative | (f) 10,703,744
| (g) 36.1 | (h) 306 |
| (i) Labour | (j) 8,606,518
| (k) 29.0 | (l) 258 |
| (m) Liberal Democrats | (n) 6,836,198
| (o) 23.0 | (p) 57 |
| (q) SNP | (r) 491,386
| (s) 1.7 | (t) 6 |
| (u) Green | (v) 284,823
| (w) 1.0 | (x) 1 |
| (y) Independent | (z) 229,021
| (aa) 0.8 | (bb) 1 |
| (cc) Sinn Fein | (dd) 171,942
| (ee) 0.6 | (ff) 5 |
| (gg) Democratic Unionist | (hh) 168,216
| (ii) 0.6 | (jj) 8 |
| (kk) Plaid Cymru | (ll) 165,394
| (mm) 0.6 | (nn) 3 |
| (oo) SDLP | (pp) 110,970
| (qq) 0.4 | (rr) 3 |
| (ss) Alliance | (tt) 42,762
| (uu) 0.1 | (vv) 1 |
| (ww) Speaker | (xx) 22,860
| (yy) 0.1 | (zz) 1 |
5. This hung Parliament was of a markedly different nature
to the previous occasion in February 1974, where the two main
parties were virtually even—the Conservative government
gaining 297 seats, to Labour's 201—with the Liberals fielding
a very small band of MPs, just 14. In 1974, because there were
23 other MPs (7 SNP, 2 Plaid Cymru, 12 members for Northern Ireland
constituencies, and two independent Labour MPs), the Liberals
could not offer either the Conservatives or Labour an overall
working majority.
6. In 2010, by contrast, the Liberal Democrats were fielding
a much larger parliamentary team of 57 seats. A figure of 326
parliamentary seats was needed for an overall majority, leaving
the largest party, the Conservatives, 20 short. If the Liberal
Democrats entered into an arrangement with Labour (the party with
which they had the closer ideological affinity), their combined
voting power in the Commons was greater than that of the Conservatives,
315 to 306. This would leave the regional and other Members holding
the balance of power, though the Green and SDLP Members could
be expected to vote with Labour, and the Unionists with the Conservatives.
The SNP and Plaid Cymru Members would generally support Labour
too, so pressures behind a "rainbow" or "progressive"
alliance behind Labour remaining in office was certainly feasible.
7. The state of public opinion on events in May 2010
came against a backdrop of popular disengagement from politics,
ambivalence over voting intentions, and a strong expectation that
there would be a "hung" Parliament. Yet precisely what
were the rules on government formation in situations of no single
party gaining an overall majority in the House of Commons was
the subject of widespread confusion and misunderstanding in the
country and the media. In some respects this was aggravated by
the Cabinet Secretary initiating novel procedures and ideas about
government formation.
8. Popular expectation in the UK is that the transition
of government after polling day is swift. In normal conditions
the Prime Minister's resignation and appointment of the opposition
leader as successor takes place at Buckingham Palace the next
morning, immediately followed by the new premier entering 10 Downing
Street, minutes after the outgoing Prime Minister has left the
premises with furniture vans by the back door. But in May 2010
no such immediate climax occurred, leaving the 24 hour mass media
and country in a state of suspense over five days, Friday 7th
to Tuesday 11th May. The 24 hour news media, a political fact
of life since the 1990s, added to the sense of national drama
and pressure on resolution on who would be Prime Minister.
9. A feature throughout this period was the intense confidentiality
surrounding the communications and meetings between participants.
There were virtually no off the record briefings to the media
about the substance of the meetings or how the negotiations were
going, in contrast to the normal state of affairs where the media
and politics are closely intertwined. The only politicians actively
involved in the negotiations who talked at all to the media beyond
the formal statements or public utterances outside the Cabinet
Office or other inter-party meeting places were on the Labour
side.
10. A final observation to be made of the pressures wrought
by public opinion and the media on government formation in 2010
relates to the televised party leaders' debates, the first ever
of their kind in the UK. Presidential in character, these high
profile events served to invest the Liberal Democrat leader Nick
Clegg with a far higher public profile and popularity. This will
have been a key factor in David Cameron's decision to embrace
him as Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition. Indeed, so personal
is Mr Clegg to the formation of the coalition government that
no provision has been made in the coalition documents, discussed
below, for the appointment of a new or different Deputy Prime
Minister in the event that Mr Clegg resigned, died, or was deselected
as Liberal Democrat Leader.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL
FRAMEWORK FOR
GOVERNMENT FORMATION
11. The UK has a traditional constitution, where historical
precedent tends to guide future conduct, particularly in areas
where the legal basis for executive action—including government
formation and prime ministerial appointment—is the royal
prerogative. Therefore prior to the 2010 election a consideration
of the events of February 1974, the last occasion when an electoral
outcome produced no overall majority, was one way of answering
the question of what were the constitutional rules under a hung
Parliament in 2010.
12. A summary of what happened in February 1974 is as
follows. The incumbent Prime Minister leading a Conservative government
was Edward Heath, and the result of polling day on February 28,
1974, in terms of parliamentary seats won, had been Labour 301,
Conservative 297, Liberal 14, SNP 7, Plaid Cymru 2, Northern Ireland
parties 12, Others 2. So no party had won an overall majority,
and any Labour claim to have the strongest mandate was offset
by the fact that the Conservatives nationally won almost 300,000
more votes than Labour, or a 37.9% share of the total vote compared
to Labour's 37.1%.
13. Mr Heath chose to remain in office over the weekend,
and proceeded to attempt to form an agreement with the Liberal
Leader Jeremy Thorpe that would sustain him in government. He
had meetings with Mr Thorpe at 10 Downing Street on the Saturday
at 4.00 pm and on the Sunday at 10.30 pm, and indicated his preference
for a coalition, with Mr Thorpe being offered a seat in Cabinet.
Any possible deal foundered, however, after meetings of the Liberal
parliamentary party and the Conservative Cabinet on the Monday
morning, with Mr Thorpe's Liberal colleagues refusing to support
any deal without a commitment from Mr Heath to enact proportional
representation, and the Conservative Cabinet being unwilling to
go further than offer a Speaker's Conference on electoral reform.
On Monday early evening, Mr Heath visited the Queen at Buckingham
Palace to tender his resignation, and Harold Wilson was invited
to form his third Labour administration.
14. Reflecting on the process that had been followed,
Mr Heath in his memoirs expressed the view, "I had a clear
constitutional duty to see if I was best placed to carry on that
responsibility". Rumblings of Labour disquiet and murmurings
of unconstitutional conduct had emanated from some quarters in
the Labour Party, but the Opposition Leader, Harold Wilson, was
content with Mr Heath's position. At Mr Wilson's meeting with
the Labour parliamentary committee on the Friday, it was, "resolved
that none of us would make any news comment, claim or forecast
over the weekend. The Conservatives still formed the Government.
They had to decide whether to resign or seek to carry on."
15. Stated as simply as possible, the constitutional
conventions on government formation (including in situations of
a hung Parliament) were and are, firstly, that the incumbent Prime
Minister has the first opportunity to continue in office and form
an administration; secondly, that if he is unable to do so (and
resigns, or is defeated on the Address or in a no confidence motion
at the meeting of the new Parliament) then the Leader of the Opposition
is appointed Prime Minister; and thirdly, it is for the political
parties to negotiate any inter-party agreement for government
among themselves without royal involvement. This is precisely
what happened in 2010, as indeed it had happened previously in
February 1974.
16. During the year preceding the election in 2010, a
few constitutional specialists, including myself, explained this
constitutional framework in a variety of publications and sessions
with the press. Thus in my letter to The Times on 28 November
2009, I wrote:
If there is a hung Parliament after the next general election,
there will be no constitutional crisis (Daniel Finkelstein, "How
to stop the Queen picking the next Prime Minister", Opinion,
Nov 25; and Mark Oaten MP, "We must head off the possible
constitutional crisis if the result of the next election is close",
Letter, Nov 27).
There is already in existence an established procedure and
basis for the resolution of who will be Prime Minister after a
general election that produces a House of Commons with no overall
majority for a single party. If this occurs after the 2010 election,
the situation will be:
— The incumbent Prime Minister has the first opportunity
to continue in office and form an administration.
— If he is unable to do so (and resigns, or is defeated
on the Address at the meeting of the new Parliament), then the
Leader of the Opposition is appointed Prime Minister.
... If no single party obtains an overall majority at the
election, Gordon Brown is entitled to see if he can remain in
office with the support of the Liberal Democrats to ward off a
defeat on the Address (or no confidence motion) at the first meeting
of the new Parliament. He would, of course, enter into talks about
agreeing to implement some Liberal Democrat policies such as constitutional
and voting reform as the price of survival in office.
But if, as the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg suggested
in a BBC interview (Andrew Marr Show) last Sunday, the Liberal
Democrats only wish to negotiate with the party which received
"the strongest mandate" at the election (it was ambiguous
as to whether he meant more seats won or more national votes cast),
Mr Clegg will indeed be in a position to force Mr Brown to resign
and allow David Cameron into 10 Downing Street.
Robert Blackburn
Professor of Constitutional Law, King's College London
Similarly, the constitutional position was set out in a widely
distributed pamphlet co-authored by myself, a senior member of
the Hansard Society, and two members of the House of Commons Library.
17. An important distinction to be drawn in interpreting
the constitutional conventions on hung Parliaments is to realise
that the right of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office
and attempt to form a working Commons majority with others outside
his party, does not mean or translate into a constitutional obligation
upon third parties to do a deal with the incumbent Prime Minister
or even to enter into any negotiations with him and his party.
In other words, in 2010 it was open to Gordon Brown as incumbent
Prime Minister to make overtures, but it was for the Liberal Democrat
leader Nick Clegg to decide with whom he would forge an agreement
for government.
18. In this context, the public statement made by Nick
Clegg in a television interview on 22 November 2009 that he would
regard the party with "the strongest mandate" as having
won the election and therefore the one with which he would enter
into negotiations first, was a highly significant political development,
and indeed a portent for how the election outcome would eventually
unfold in terms of the negotiations between the parties during
the five days of 7th and 12th May. The emphatic way in which the
Liberal Democrat leader presented his view to the public, later
characterised as "the Clegg doctrine", went as follows:
Andrew Marr: Can I ask you about the opinion poll this
morning, which suggests that we may be closer to a hung parliament
than we all thought. Is your position that it would be the sort
of morally right thing, if there was that condition, to back the
party which got the biggest number of seats or votes, or what?
... I'm asking about your sort of philosophical approach to a
situation where nobody had an overall majority| Would you feel
it was the right thing to offer your support first to the party
which had done best?
Nick Clegg: Oh, I think it's just an inevitable fact,
it's just stating the obvious, that the party which has got the
strongest mandate from the British people will have the first
right to seek to govern either on its own or reach a ...
Andrew Marr: Well that's not, that's not been the case
in the past|Ted Heath, for instance, as you know, discussed with
the Liberal Democrats first before throwing in the towel. So we
could have a situation where Gordon Brown was coming to you and
saying ...
Nick Clegg: No, I start from a very simple first principle.
It's not Gordon Brown or David Cameron or Nick Clegg, who are
sort of kingmakers in British politics. It is the British people.
So the votes of the British people should determine what happens
afterwards. You know that is what should happen in a democracy
... It's whichever party—whether it's the Liberal Democrats,
Labour or the Conservatives—have the strongest mandate from
the British people. It seems to me obvious in a democracy, they
have the first right to seek to try and govern either on their
own or with others.
THE CABINET
SECRETARY'S
INTERVENTION
19. Shortly before the 2010 election, the Cabinet Secretary
started to prepare a Cabinet Manual describing the structure and
operation of central government, including a chapter on electoral
outcomes. A draft form of this chapter was shown to the House
of Commons Justice Committee as evidence in its short inquiry
into constitutional processes following a general election, and
its content was discussed with the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell
at an evidence session held on 24 February 2010.
20. On hung Parliaments, the draft Manual reads,
Where an election does not result in a clear majority for a single
party, the incumbent Government remains in office unless and until
the Prime Minister tenders his and the Government's resignation
to the Monarch. An incumbent Government is entitled to await the
meeting of the new Parliament to see if it can command the confidence
of the House of Commons or to resign if it becomes clear that
it is unlikely to command that confidence. If a Government is
defeated on a motion of confidence in the House of Commons, a
Prime Minister is expected to tender the Government's resignation
immediately ...
21. However it appeared from other parts of the draft
Manual, and became clear during the Cabinet Secretary's evidence
session with the Justice Committee, that a major purpose lying
behind the new draft Manual was not simply to describe existing
convention but to create new expectations and processes.
22. The first change in conventional practice desired
by the Cabinet Secretary was to establish and extend the principle
of a "caretaker" prime minister and government. Currently,
between the public announcement of an election and polling day,
a period of "purdah" has been said to exist, when the
government will refrain from initiating any significant new government
policy, executive action, or expenditure of public money, particularly
if it represents a commitment that will bind the post-election
government. Its democratic logic is essentially one of fairness:
that a popular act could be seen as stealing an advantage over
the other parties; and particularly if a change of government
is in prospect, the decision is rightly one for the new government
to take.
23. The Cabinet Secretary told the Commons Justice Committee
that he wished to now extend this "discretion" on the
part of a government into the post-election period "when
we do not have a stable government". This would include any
period of inter-party negotiation, as in fact occurred between
7 and 11 May 2010, and could extend considerably further, not
just until the meeting of the new Parliament and Queen's Speech,
but arguably for several months thereafter if a minority government's
position in the House of Commons was considered politically fragile
with a real possibility of losing a confidence motion or a second
general election being called.
24. The new principle drafted on Sir Gus O'Donnell's
instruction for the draft Cabinet Manual was, As long as there
is significant doubt whether the Government has the confidence
of the House of Commons, it would be prudent for it to observe
discretion about taking significant decisions, as per the pre-election
period. The normal and essential business of government at all
levels, however, will need to be carried on.
25. The second change sought by the Cabinet Secretary
was for the civil service to take over the hosting of any post-election
inter-party negotiations. The draft Cabinet Manual included a
paragraph stating:
It is open to the Prime Minister to ask the Cabinet Secretary
to support the Government's discussions with Opposition or minority
parties on the formation of a government. If Opposition parties
request similar support for their discussions with each other
or with the Government, this can be provided by the Cabinet Office
with the authorisation of the Prime Minister.
The precise details on the nature of support envisaged were
unclear at the time the draft Manual was shown to the Justice
Committee, with Sir Gus O'Donnell agreeing in discussions with
members of the Committee that, "we have some quite difficult
practical issues to sort out as to how we make this work".
26. During the five days in May, the actual support given
by civil servants from the Cabinet Office appears to have consisted
of making a room available at 70 Whitehall for the Conservative-Liberal
Democrat talks and serving sandwich refreshments. It is thought
there may have been one civil service intervention from the Treasury
in giving some factual background information. No support appears
to have been given for the Labour-Liberal Democrat talks, which
were held in the House of Commons, although it is believed the
Permanent Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made
his office available for the private meeting held between Mr Brown
and Mr Clegg during the afternoon of Sunday 9 May.
27. One net consequence of the Cabinet Secretary's initiative
was to remove 10 Downing Street as the forum for the incumbent
Prime Minister's talks with the third party, as Mr Heath had had
in 1974, as well as the regional parties. Some claim the Prime
Minister thereby lost a valuable psychological advantage in terms
of maintaining initiative and momentum over events.
28. The Committee may now wish to establish from the
Cabinet Office:
— the precise details of its support given to the negotiations;
— what instructions were issued by the Cabinet Secretary
to his staff on the matter;
— what requests were made by members of the negotiating
teams in all three political parties; and
— how useful members of the respective negotiating teams
found the civil service support and for what purposes.
29. Supporting the ideas of the Cabinet Secretary on
transition of government arrangements were modifications made
under the authority of the royal prerogative to the meeting of
the new Parliament. The date for the first meeting of the newly
elected Parliament in 2010 was put back one week longer than had
been normal under post-1945 constitutional practice. The principal
reason for this change, certainly as it was perceived by the media
briefed by the civil service, was to facilitate post-election
negotiations in the transition of government.
MR BROWN'S
"CONSTITUTIONAL BIND"
30. As stated above, the idea of the Cabinet Secretary
was that the incumbent Prime Minister should remain in 10 Downing
Street as a "caretaker" as long as it took for negotiations
leading to a new government and agreed policy programme for office
to be concluded. Although originally suspicious of civil service
interference, during the five days of negotiations Mr Clegg came
to enthusiastically adopt the Cabinet Secretary's views. As expressed
shortly after the election.
I come from the perspective that if you're trying to do something
very unusual, which is of course creating a coalition in a political
culture such as ours which isn't used to coalition, this is very
unusual. We were doing it in an extraordinarily compressed timetable.
In most other countries where they negotiate coalitions, they
take months to do it. We were doing it in a matter of hours and
days when everyone was pretty tired after the election campaign.
So suddenly to be told out of the blue the Prime Minister was
going to you know march off to Downing Street and say, "I'm
fed up with this. You know I'm going to throw the towel in and
I'm going to you know march off into the distant horizon",
I thought was not the right way of going about things.
31. However our political culture, and the popular expectations
of the media and country during the five days in May, was not
yet ready or primed for this "caretaker" idea. Gordon
Brown found himself in an extremely difficult position of personal
and professional embarrassment on Tuesday 11 May, once it had
become clear the Opposition Leader would become the new Prime
Minister. The combination devised by the Cabinet Secretary of
displacing Number 10 as the central forum for resolving who would
form the next administration, and encouraging the opposition parties
to take as long as they wanted in finalising a policy deal, left
Mr Brown in a constitutional bind. Some of the mass circulation
press were being vitriolic in presenting their view to the public.
"Whitehall property scandal—squatter holed up in No
10—Man, 59, refuses to leave house in Downing Street",
ran one of The Sun's front pages during the five days.
It was this factor, above all, that motivated Gordon Brown to
resign abruptly on Tuesday evening, May 11, even though it seems
the Cabinet Office, and Buckingham Palace officials taking their
lead from the civil servants, were putting him under some pressure
to remain in post until the next day or even longer.
THE POLITICAL
PARTIES AND
THEIR LEADERS
32. One further noteworthy aspect of the five days of
negotiations was the role of internal party procedures. The Conservative
and Labour leaders were procedurally free to negotiate as they
thought fit, consulting only those they wished to do for tactical
advice.
33. The Liberal Democrat Leader, Mr Clegg, alone was
bound by party rules on the matter, which were—Conference
notes the absence of specific constitutional provisions which
clearly define the Party's approach to gaining positive consent
to proposals for an important change in strategy or positioning:
agrees that:
(i) in the event of any substantial proposal which could affect
the Party's independence of political action, the consent will
be required of a majority of members of the Parliamentary Party
in the House of Commons and the Federal Executive;
(ii) unless there is a three-quarters majority of each group
in favour of the proposals, the consent of the majority of those
present and voting at a Special Conference convened under clause
6.6 of the Constitution; and
(iii) unless there is a two-thirds majority of those present
and voting at that Conference in favour of the proposals, the
consent of a majority of all members of the Party voting in the
ballot called pursuant to clause 6.11 or 8.6 of the Constitution.
Thus under party rules, there was this "triple lock"
of constraints binding Mr Clegg before entering into any agreement
with another party. The resolution governing the procedure was
passed by the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in 1998, at which
time there were concerns among activists about its then Leader
Paddy Ashdown's ideas for closer relations with Tony Blair's New
Labour government.
THE COALITION
PARTNERS' AGREEMENTS
FOR GOVERNMENT
34. On the substance of the post-election agreements
between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaderships, four
documents were published in May, shaping how the coalition government
would operate, two dealing with policy, two with process. Collectively,
these documents and the accompanying statements made by the party
leaders represent the constitutional principles and working arrangements
for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.
35. The first of these, published as a simple seven page
stapled document on 11 May, was launched by the two party leaders
at their media conference the day after taking office. It set
out the issues that needed to be resolved between the two parties
in order to establish a "strong and stable government",
and said it would be followed in due course by a final Coalition
Agreement, covering the full range of policy including foreign,
defence and domestic policy issues not covered in the preliminary
document. Eight days later on 20 May, a HM Government document
gave the further elaboration on the parties' agreements, entitled,
The Coalition: Our Programme for Government.
36. The Coalition Agreement reads and looks like an election
manifesto, although its moral authority in terms of representing
a democratic mandate for government is open to debate which the
Committee may wish to explore with some specialists in political
philosophy.
37. The nature and procedures for the Conservatives and
Liberal Democrats joint working arrangements were finalised between
the party leaders last, and is contained in a document entitled,
Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform. It needs
to be read alongside the fourth key document of the coalition,
the new revised version of the Ministerial Code. Whilst the Stability
and Reform document goes to the heart of the political partnership
of the two parties, the Code has a more formal status so far as
the Cabinet Office and machinery of government is concerned.
38. The Stability and Reform agreement is a concise,
three page summary of essential working arrangements, under the
headings of "composition of the government", "collective
responsibility", "functioning of the government",
and "support for the government in Parliament". At the
crux of the power relationship between the parties and their respective
leaders lies the constitutional fact that the Prime Minister has
the executive powers of the royal prerogative at his disposal.
These include the key powers of ministerial appointment, transfers,
and dismissals; public appointments, including peerages in the
second chamber; and control over the agenda and arrangement of
Cabinet proceedings. Unsurprisingly therefore, consultation processes
with the Deputy Prime Minister feature strongly throughout the
Stability and Reform agreement.
39. More complex and politically sensitive is precisely
how disagreements are to be managed and resolved, and how each
party leader (particularly the Deputy Prime Minister) will deliver
the support of his party in parliamentary votes crucial to the
life of the coalition government. The well-known principles of
collective Cabinet responsibility—confidentiality of proceedings
and the public appearance of unanimity—are emphatically
endorsed in the Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform.
They are stated to apply "unless explicitly set aside",
and this is mirrored in the new version of the Ministerial Code.
The agreement takes into account, however, that demands for collective
responsibility must be matched by allowing ministers to present
their views and be involved in relevant consultations and discussion.
40. Carefully constructed machinery has been created
by the two party leaders to sustain the coalition and swiftly
resolve any issues between the two parties. The most senior component
in this is the "Coalition Committee", which has the
status of being a formal Cabinet Committee. It is co-chaired by
David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and comprises an equal number of
Cabinet members from each party. It meets weekly, or as required.
Below it is the Coalition Operation and Strategic Planning Group,
which is designated an informal working group (not a Cabinet sub-committee),
comprising four members, two from each party.
41. Across the new structure of Cabinet Committees established
by the Prime Minister, each Committee has a chair from one party
and a deputy chair from the other party, and if any unresolved
issues arise between members of the different parties on any of
the Committees, they are to be referred to the Coalition Committee.
42. So too, the Coalition Agreement for Stability and
Reform carefully sets out the principles aimed at securing support
for the coalition government in Parliament. "Ministers will
be responsible for developing and maintaining a constructive dialogue
with Members of both Parliamentary Parties", the agreement
reads, and "the two Parties will aim to ensure support for
Government policy and legislation from their two Parliamentary
Parties, except where the Coalition Programme for Government specifically
provides otherwise". The document provides that any exceptions
allowing dissent must be specifically agreed by the Coalition
Committee and Cabinet.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
43. Some key political and constitutional lessons to
be learnt from the process of government formation at the 2010
election are that:
— In the event of a hung Parliament, it is the political
leaders in consultation with their parties (under specific party
procedures, where applicable) who by negotiation determine who
will be Prime Minister and form the government.
— The House of Commons has no direct role in formalising
a new administration, which is a royal prerogative act of the
monarch. The Committee may wish to consider whether a formal vote
of confidence should now take always place in the Commons, consistent
with the proposal for this procedure in the event of a censure
motion and alternative government taking office under the terms
of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill [Bill No 64 of 2010-11].
— The monarchy accepts that it has no proactive role
to play in government formation, though it closely follows events
in order to offer any support necessary, including the ceremonial
acts of receiving the resignation of the outgoing prime minister
and inviting his/er successor to take office and form an administration.
— The Cabinet Secretary has taken the initiative in
developing constitutional practice on government formation. His
purpose is to encourage negotiating parties to establish a detailed
policy programme for government, whilst maintaining a caretaker
government in office whilst the negotiations are conducted. However,
the process by which this initiative was, and is, being conducted
is questionable.
44. The Committee may therefore wish to consider:
(a) whether it should inquire into the changes and whether
they were shown to be necessary or desirable;
(b) whether the pre-election preparations for implementing
the Cabinet Secretary's changes were adequate or need improvement
in a similar future situation, for example in the quality of support
given to the incumbent Prime Minister in the role as "caretaker",
and in developing public expectations about transition of government
arrangements; and
(c) whether it is intended that the Cabinet Manual is a public
document of constitutional authority; and if so, whether the degree
of public consultation outside Whitehall has been sufficient,
and whether as a process for reform this should now be developed
further by a cross-party parliamentary body such as the Committee
itself and/or by a minister responsible to Parliament.
9 October 2010
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