Might a hung parliament be a good thing?

by Chris UnLimited 16. April 2010 19:51

STUFF BY ME WEEK-ENDING 18 APR 2010

Despite the sudden and somewhat satisfying rise of the Liberal Democrats this week post Britian's first ever televised leadership debate, and despite the level of David Cameron hatred increasing by the day among most of my friends on Twitter and Facebook, my gut feeling is that the Tories are still going to win next month's General Election.

But still, more so now than in the build up to any other of the Big Votes that have happened in my lifetime, including 1992, it really does seem too close to call. Perhaps we will, as many a pundit has been speculating for months now, have a so called 'hung parliament' come 7 May. Part of me really hopes so.

Of course, many in the British political class still talk about a hung parliament - ie where no one party occupies more than 50% of the seats in the House Of Commons - as if it's the worst possible result an election can deliver, and argue that such an outcome will almost certainly require another election to be held within the year in a bid to secure either Labour or the Tories a Commons majority.

But I do not concur with that viewpoint. Rather, I reckon a hung parliament could actually be good news for British democracy, especially at this time when public opinion of the political process, and the political community, is at an all time low. Though, for that to work, whichever party or parties formed the government after 6 May would have to embrace a totally new way of doing business; a better way, but a more risky one too.

Those who oppose the idea of a hung parliament do so for at least three reasons: a selfish reason, a practical reason, and an historic reason.

The selfish argument
Obviously if you are the leader of the Labour or Conservative parties, and have a real chance of forming a government with more than 50% of the MPs in the Commons on your side, then having to govern with a hung parliament instead would be much less satisfactory.

Because, by convention, the leader of the political party with the most seats in the Commons, which normally also has more than 50% of those seats, becomes the British Prime Minister, he or she is actually one of the most powerful of all the democratically elected leaders in the world, on domestic issues at least.

Because, by definition, he can win any vote in parliament, first by exercising his automatic majority block vote in the Commons (ie all the MPs in his party, minus any normally small group of party rebels) and then, if necessary, by wheeling out his constitutional right to overrule the Lords.

But if we have a hung parliament, there are no such automatic victories, because even if 100% of the PM's own MPs vote in his favour, he could still lose on the day if he can't talk enough opposition MPs, and that probably means those in the smaller parties, around to his way of thinking. So you can see why, as PM, that's not a desirable situation, because your power base is considerably reduced.

But why should our constitution be written to ensure the PM has an easy life? Especially when a hung parliament could, arguably, be good news for parliament itself.

I think one of the reasons why the public at large were so eager to join in with the mud slinging during last year's MP expenses scandal is that many people wonder what exactly parliament is for, ie why it is that we pay 646 people sixty-four grand a year to wander around the Palace Of Westminster at all?

Now, I'm willing to believe the vast majority of those 646 MPs work very hard for their constituents, but under the current system parliament, although theoretically superior to the PM and his government, is a redundant institution. Which is why so many voters start to wonder what it's actually there for, and are so willing to assume the worst of the political class when a scandal breaks.

Another example. When the rather controversial Digital Economy Act was recently pushed through parliament at record speed during the so called wash-up, to ensure it became law before the Election, many of those who opposed the Act complained loudly that the proposed legislation could so easily be sped through the Commons.

Of course the rights and wrongs of the wash-up is a debate in itself, but the fact is this: the Act - which had already been scrutinised by the politically balanced Lords - would have been passed by the Commons however long MPs had had to debate the issues, because the PM and his team can get whatever they want through the Commons.

Most of those against the DEA said they had a major problem with the politicians and lobbyists who worked hard to make the Act law during the wash-up. But what they really had a problem with was the British law-making system itself. It's just the flaws of that system are more obvious when the parliamentary process is played at high speed.

Having a PM and government without an automatic majority vote in the Commons would, in my opinion, do wonders for the reputation of parliament, which would reassert itself as the supreme law-making body of the United Kingdom, which only passed laws if those who proposed them could truly win the debate.

The practical argument
Of course a hung parliament does have down sides, and those who oppose the idea don't always do so on exclusively selfish grounds.

Some argue that a weak government, ie one that can't be assured to get news laws passed by parliament, equals an ineffective government. I'm not sure I buy that argument, not least because there have been strong governments who have been pretty ineffective.

It is true that if a PM couldn't get his Queens Speech or budget passed by parliament - which could happen if it were hung - then that would cause problems. But it seems likely the Liberal Democrats would support a minority government run by either Labour or Conservative on these key votes in return for some nominal favours on a handful of key policies.

There is also the argument that a hung parliament could block a PM from passing laws that were promised in the party of government's manifesto ahead of the election, creating something of a constitutional quandary.

I accept that is potentially an issue, and it's not an area where I have any solutions to offer just now. But it is worth noting parties in government are very good at remembering their manifestos when it helps them win a vote in the Lords, but less so when they pursue policies contrary to their pre-Election promises. I'm also sure some sort of system could be created to deal with this dilemma.

Others will argue that a hung parliament gives increased power to minority parties or independent MPs, whose votes become more important. It's true a hung parliament might give such parties more power than they possibly deserve in certain circumstances, though given the whole British political system is currently set up to make minority parties all but irrelevant in parliamentary terms, that might result in a bit of balance overall.

True, it's more of an issue if the minority parties with increased power represent areas not affected by the result of a vote - so SNP MPs voting on issues that do not relate to Scotland because of devolution - though that's a wider constitutional issue for the UK that needs addressing whatever the make up of the Westminster parliament come May.

But despite these potential issues - which are real - there are practical pros as well as cons to a hung parliament. Aside from it forcing government to write better laws, and form and present better arguments to parliament, it might also result in the executive passing less laws, which would be a good thing.

Three decades of strong British government (OK, Major's 1990s government wasn't especially strong, but it did have a majority until its closing months in power) has seen the British statute book grow at an unprecedented rate. We now have a political culture where if an issue needs addressing, too many politicians assume by default that the solution is a new law.

This tendency is not good government, and it's not good for the legal system, which simply becomes vast and confused, and too intrusive on every day life. Yes, governments need to change some laws to achieve their political objectives, but there's a lot to be said for ministers spending more time and effort running things better within the existing legal framework, rather than distracting everyone with new laws.

The historic argument
As I said at the outset, governing with a hung parliament would require a new way of handling governmental business, because it's been such a long time since a British PM has had to run the country without an automatic majority in the Commons.

Ignoring the final months of the Major government, we have to go back to the 1970s to find a hung parliament, a proper one following the first election of 1974, and a virtual one after the second election that took place that year. If you do so, you find one of the weakest British governments in post-war history and, some would argue, one of the least effective. This, of course, reinforces the initial 'practical argument' against hung parliaments. The historic argument says "a virtually hung parliament didn't work well for Britain in the 1970s, so it won't work well now".

But, even if you believe Jim Callaghan's 1970s minority government was ineffective, and even if you reckon the politically balanced Commons he reported to caused some or much of that inefficiency, you have to also accept that British politics have been transformed since the pre-Thatcher era.

In the seventies the two biggest parties in parliament were diametrically opposed on numerous key issues of the day, even if you ignored the more extreme elements of each party. But, as has been widely documented, and satirised, in the last decade, most if not all of those black and white distinctions between Labour and Tory have now gone.

Both the big two parties basically have the same vision of Britain, they just have slightly different ideas of how to make that happen. Would it be impossible for a Tory-led minority government to work with Labour MPs on those many areas where there is consensus, or vice versa. Do we really need a political system where one big party automatically opposes the other by default?

Conclusion
As I say, I don't actually expect either Brown or Cameron to be facing the prospect of forming a minority government reporting to a hung parliament come 7 May. However, if that was the case, and if the political class was willing to accept that result as an opportunity to reinvent the British parliamentary system for the better, I think that could be very exciting.

Certainly, to assume a politically balanced Commons can only be a bad thing for British politics is a very dated and selfish way of viewing the workings of the mother of all parliaments.

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