Harriet Harman to begin the Parliamentary ‘washing-up’

So, at last the day has arrived, Gordon Brown has asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament which has set the ball rolling towards the confirmed election date of May 6th.

As the party leaders head off around the country canvassing voters, behind the scenes in Westminster backroom staff are eagerly preparing themselves for the another of the British Parliamentary peculiarities, the infrequent and arcane ritual of the parliamentary "wash-up".

The leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, left, will shortly propose an emergency business motion to MPs designed to rush through as many of the outstanding bills into statute in the two days before Parliament is officially dissolved.

While legislation may now be "carried forward" from one parliamentary session to the next, it cannot be carried forward between parliaments. All bills not passed on the date when the House rises for the last time this year will be lost.

Since some of the legislation is non-controversial, and some financial legislation is essential to keep the country running, this is not an altogether brilliant outcome. Therefore, Parliament has evolved a mechanism for getting round this.

The wash-up, as it is known, is due this time around to take place on Wednesday (7th) and Thursday (8th), even if technically Parliament is still sitting until Monday (12th).

In today’s Guardian, political correspondent Martin Bell says it should instead be known as “stitch-up” since as it invokes the time-honoured tradition of the Party Whips going into a huddle and carrying out horse-trading over any legislation that has not yet made it all the way through both Houses of Parliament.

The ‘wash-up’, he says, “is a secretive process, the modern equivalent of the smoke-filled room. Those taking part are the parties' whips and business managers, plus officials from various government departments. Those excluded are the rank and file of MPs, together with independents and crossbenchers in the Lords. The wash-up is a stitch-up devised by and for the main political parties.”

So how does the wash-up work? Well, according to the House of Commons Library, it is "not a procedural matter for the House" – which doesn’t help us a great deal to understand it.

But what is clear is that the Opposition spokespeople essentially become veto players, going through what is left of all the existing legislation on a line-by-line basis, striking out anything that they dislike.

Each bill has to gain the approval of both sides of the House and so any compromises struck will speed up its entry into the statute book. Should one MP raise an objection and there is inadequate time to hold a debate on that objection, the chance is lost and the bill will fall.

At the current time, there are a number of bills all in a variety of stages along the path to become law. Many are in committee stages of the Lords, while others require the Commons to look at amendments proposed by the Lords. Some need only agreement on remaining sections, others for the entirety of the bill.

One notable bill of particular interest to be resolved is the Digital Economy Bill, which with its controversial measures aimed at stamping down on internet piracy and file-sharing, is a controversial topic on the internet forums. Many opposing the bill argue that it will remove the right to a fair trial, stamp out public WIFI, and effectively wreck Britain's ambitions to be a world web leader.

But parliamentary observers, like myself, are particularly interested in the progress of the Wright committee recommendations about parliamentary reforms, which would give MPs far greater power to set the parliamentary agenda and choose who sits on select committees. Many of these reforms have already been agreed, but others remain. What about the proposal to hold a referendum on the alternative vote system – a system that allows the voters to list the candidates in order of preference, and reflects their choices much more fairly than first past the post.

The greatest problem with this process is that it is far from democratic. Not even the elected representatives of the people get much of a say.

As Bell writes “It [wash-up] will be the enabler of some bills and the executioner of others. These are measures which will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Yet we will have no idea why one was nodded through and another was blocked; which party made which compromises and why; and whether the public interest was served or simply traded away.”

Will Brown make history by calling the General Election in the Commons?

I think the clever chaps at the Financial Times Westminster blog have hit the nail right on the head after a recent post addressed the possibility of Gordon Brown making history and announcing the date of the next General Election in the House of Commons chamber.

The author, Alex Barker, cites the new book by Rallings and Thrasher containing more than 250 pages of British electoral facts (yes it is exciting as it sounds) to reveal that no Prime Minister has announced an election in the chamber for 75 years.

This feature is somewhat peculiar since the Commons used to be the favoured place to make these announcements, but as the author says, the last Prime Minister to call an election from the dispatch box was Stanley Baldwin back in 1935.

“Most post-war prime ministers fired the starting gun with a press announcement or broadcast and the fashion since the 1990s has been a statement from Downing Street,” it reads, “the exception was Blair’s memorable 2001 announcement to a school, replete with halo and stained glass window.”

If the Election date is to the be the much-rumoured 6th May, then the announcement will have to be made very soon in order to have Parliament “dissolved” and the machinery for running an election to be initiated.

The table below made available by the House of Commons Library is an invaluable guide to the technicalities for election dates and clearly shows how you need 17 full working days between calling an election and polling day itself.


As you can see from the table (click here to enlarge image), Mr Brown can technically call a 6th May election as late as Monday 12th April - but he would surely want at least a few extra days of Parliamentary proceedings when he can pass the final stages of bills.

And so with that in mind and given what a bad year the institution has had scared by scandal after scandal, where better for Brown to add another achievement to his ‘legacy’ by making history and becoming the first PM in 75 years to announce the election in the House?

Keep an eye out for the agenda on Tuesday when “normal service” resumes after Easter…

By law, MPs cannot simply "resign" their seat - so how do they do it?

On 13th January 2010, the British Treasury issued the following press statement which reads: "The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Iris Robinson to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern."

Now while that sounds like a fantastic jobtitle to have, what does it actually mean?

The answer provides me with the perfect opportunity to begin to shed light on some of the fascinating parliamentary peculiarities of which the UK Parliament and I'm sure other Governments around the world have. And I'm sure that this is something you've never thought about before...

As it stands legally, British MPs are not permitted to simply resign their seat.

So what does this position signify? Well, in fact this is one of a few 'fiction' positions that exist to which Members of Parliament (MP) can be "appointed to" in order for them to "resign" their seat in the House.

In order to step down, they must apply to an 'office of profit under the Crown', which if their application is accepted, as then stated in the 1701 Act of Settlement, he or she must relinquish his or her seat.

The application is made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (hence the Treasury announcement) who usually then signs a warrant appointing the now former MP to the role. What this means (even more bizarrely) is that the Chancellor can in theory deny an application...

Anyway, once 'appointed', the outgoing MP holds the office until such time as another is 'appointed' in his or her place. Sometimes this can be a matter of minutes, as on the occasion when three or more MPs apply (or 'resign') on the same day.

This legal anomaly dates all the way back to a resolution made by the House of Commons on the 2nd March 1624 - a time in history where it was not uncommon for MPs to be elected to serve their country against their own will.

As for the name, well, a hundred is a traditional division of an English county, and the three hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham which are all located within the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire. [There is another such office, bearing the title Steward of the Manor of Northstead, and normally these are allocated in rotation.]

Previous recent holders of this post include Betty Boothroyd (the first and only (to date) female Speaker of the House of Commons), David Davis (resigned to contest for the same Haltemprice and Howden seat on a platform of 'British liberties' to protest against the Labour government's plans for a 42-day detention period for suspected terrorists), and former Prime Minister Tony Blair...