Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, for the first time, set in legislation a default fixed election date for general elections in the United Kingdom. It remained in force until 2022, when it was repealed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. Since then, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so. Prime ministers have often employed this mechanism to call an election before the end of their five-year term, sometimes fairly early in it. Critics have said this gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister, allowing them to call a general election at a time that suits them electorally. While it was in force, the FTPA removed this longstanding power of the prime minister.
Under the FTPA, general elections were automatically scheduled for the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election, or the fourth year if the date of the previous election was before the first Thursday in May. However, the FTPA also provided two ways to call an election earlier. One was a Commons vote of no confidence in the government, which still required only a simple majority of voters. The other was a vote explicitly in favour of an earlier election, which required a qualified majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the Commons. The first election under the FTPA was held on 7 May 2015. An early election was held in 2017, after Prime Minister Theresa May received approval to call it by a two-thirds majority.
Under the FTPA, the following general election was scheduled for 2022, but the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, passed with Opposition support, circumvented the FTPA, providing for an election on 12 December 2019 while otherwise leaving the FTPA in place. The Conservative Party entered the election with a manifesto pledge to repeal the FTPA. The resulting Conservative majority government, in fulfilment of its commitment, published on 1 December 2020 a draft Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 Bill to repeal the FTPA and revive the royal prerogative power of dissolving Parliament as it existed before the act. The repealing legislation was formally announced in the Queen's Speech of 11 May 2021, and granted royal assent as the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 on 24 March 2022.
Background
The Parliament of England originated as a board of advisors for the monarch, or curia regis. As the king was able to summon Parliament at will, so could he dissolve it by royal proclamation. Events of the 17th century began to regulate the summoning and dissolution of Parliament; the English Civil War was in large part caused by the efforts of Charles I to rule without it. The Triennial Act 1640 was passed to require Parliament meet for at least one session every three years, providing for a failsafe mechanism should the king fail to issue the appropriate writs; this was replaced by the Meeting of Parliament Act 1694, requiring annual sessions and a general election at least every three years.The Septennial Act 1715 increased the maximum lifespan of a parliament to seven years. The Chartists demanded annual parliamentary elections, which was the only demand of theirs that was not achieved by the early 20th century. The Parliament Act 1911 amended the Septennial Act by reducing the lifespan to five years. These laws can be, and have been, abrogated in times of great crisis, in practice during both World Wars, whose respective parliaments lasted from 1910 to 1918 and from 1935 to 1945.
Despite these regulations, the royal prerogative to dissolve Parliament within the bounds of law remained. Events of the 18th and 19th century reduced the monarch's personal power in politics in favour of that of his nominal advisor the prime minister, such that by the 19th century prime ministers had a great deal of de facto control over the timing of general elections. The handing of such power to the prime minister was a convention rather than any formal law, and the monarch could in theory refuse to grant such a request; the Lascelles Principles formulated in 1950 outline the possible scenarios in which such a refusal would likely be made.
The statutory lifespan referred to the lifetime of the parliament and not to the interval between general elections. For example, while John Major's government lasted four years, eleven months and two days; the period between the general elections of 1992 and 1997 was five years and twenty-two days. No parliament in practice ever reached this milestone outside of the World Wars, as it was always dissolved before its expiry. The longest Parliament preceding the FTPA, other than during wartime, was the 51st Parliament, which lasted four years, eleven months and two days.
The lack of a fixed parliamentary term allowed for the prime minister to decide when to hold an election solely on partisan grounds; it was also criticised for creating uncertainty before the calling of an election when such a calling was anticipated.
Main parties' views
Until 2010 the Conservative Party's manifesto made no mention of fixed-term Parliaments. The Labour Party manifesto for 2010 said that it would introduce fixed-term Parliaments, but did not say how long they would be. The Liberal Democrat manifesto for 2010 included a pledge to introduce four-year fixed-term Parliaments. The 2010 election resulted in a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives having 306 MPs and the Liberal Democrats 57 MPs. The two parties negotiated a coalition agreement to form a government, and a commitment to legislate for fixed-term Parliaments was included in the coalition deal. The journalist John Rentoul has suggested that one of the subsequent coalition government's motives for passing the legislation was a concern about its own potential instability. In this view the legislation was intended to make it difficult for either coalition partner to force an early election and bring the government down.Provisions
Section 3 of the act originally stated that Parliament should be automatically dissolved seventeen working days before the polling day of a general election. This was subsequently amended by the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 to twenty-five working days. Section 1 of the FTPA provided for the polling day to occur on the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election, starting with 7 May 2015.The Prime Minister was given the power to postpone this date by up to two months by laying a draft statutory instrument before the House proposing that polling day occur up to two months later than that date. If the use of such a statutory instrument were approved by each House of Parliament, the Prime Minister had the power, by order made by statutory instrument under section 1, to provide that polling day occurs accordingly.
Section 2 of the FTPA also provided for two ways in which a general election could be held before the end of this five-year period:
- If the House of Commons resolved "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government", an early general election would be held, unless the House of Commons subsequently resolved "That this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government". This second resolution must be made within fourteen days of the first. This provision recognised that in a hung parliament it might be possible for a new government to be formed, commanding a majority.
- If the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership, resolved "That there shall be an early parliamentary general election".
Apart from the automatic dissolution in anticipation of a general election, whether held early or not, section 3 provided that "Parliament cannot otherwise be dissolved". The FTPA thus removed the traditional royal prerogative to dissolve Parliament, and repealed the Septennial Act 1715 as well as references in other Acts to the royal prerogative. The royal prerogative to prorogue Parliament – that is, to end a parliamentary session – was not affected by the FTPA.
Review
Under section 7– of the FTPA the Prime Minister was obliged to establish a committee to review the operation of the FTPA and to make recommendations for its amendment or repeal, if appropriate. The committee was required to be established between 1 June and 30 November 2020, and the majority of its members must be members of the House of Commons. On 10 November 2020, the House of Commons ordered the establishment of a Joint Committee pursuant to the FTPA and appointed the Commons members of the Committee.Debate
When introducing the Bill that became the FTPA into the House of Commons, Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that "by setting the date that Parliament will dissolve, our Prime Minister is giving up the right to pick and choose the date of the next general election—that's a true first in British politics."The government initially indicated that an "enhanced majority" of 55 per cent of MPs would be needed to trigger a dissolution, but this did not become part of the FTPA. Instead, the FTPA contained the two-thirds requirement.
Proposed amendments that would have limited the fixed term to four years, backed by Labour, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, were defeated.
Section 4 of the FTPA postponed the Scottish Parliament election that would have been held on 7 May 2015, moving the election day to 5 May 2016 to avoid it coinciding with the general election in the United Kingdom.