Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Fixed-term Parliaments Act

Thursday 16 July 2020 · 1 question

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 0 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Aaron Bell thanked his hon. Friend and supported comments from another Member.
  • Bell highlighted the previous Government's inability to pass core legislative agenda.
  • The Minister emphasized the need to reconnect the issue of confidence with calling an election.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Aaron Bell Lab Holborn and St Pancras
Context

Bell supports his argument by referring to the previous Parliament's inability to pass core legislative agenda despite having confidence in the Government.

Question

I thank my hon. Friend for her answer and associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). The problem we had last year was that we had a Government who were manifestly unable to get their core legislative agenda through. They did not have the confidence of the House for that, but the House voted that it had confidence in the Government.

Answer from Chloe Smith (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General)

I thank my hon. Friend for putting his finger on a very important part of what was wrong with that scenario and what is wrong with that legislation: it divorces the issue of confidence from the issue of calling an election. One thing we want to do as we look at its repeal is to make sure that that central tenet of the constitution and of parliamentary operation can be properly functional.

Answered
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