Discuss the view that fixed date elections for the House of Commons are a good idea (30 marks)
On 15th September 2011, the Fixed Term Parliament Act was given royal assent. Under the provisions of the Act, parliamentary elections must be held every five years. Previously the Prime Minister had the power to call a general election whenever he/she wanted, as long as there was at least one every five years. This act has numerous advantages, including electoral fairness, prevention of needless speculation and greater stability. However there are also many disadvantages, such as benefits to the government of the day, longer campaigns and prolonged terms.
The major criticism of the traditional system of flexible-term elections is that they gave the prime minister a significant and unfair advantage at election time. This is because the PM could dissolve Parliament to call an election at a time that is most favourable to their own party, as indicated by polling trends, as done so by Tony Blair in 2001. Fixed date elections remove the element of surprise for the opposition, since all parties know when the election will be held, and not just the Prime Minister and the governing party.
Furthermore, fixed date elections prevents the media from speculating and stops the diversion of serious business in government. This leads to more stability in the government, politically and economically. The government tends to lose direction in regard to policies and the implementation of programmes, due to the problem caused by own party interests. All of this uncertainty about the date of the next election date. On the other hand, if a government know that they are going to serve a full term in office, they have the opportunity to develop and follow through with policies, without the threat of a surprise election.
Many people have argued that if having fixed term elections is good enough for the devolved parts of the UK, such as the Scottish parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies. Elections for the European parliament and for local authorities here are also held on fixed appointed dates, so surely it should be good enough for Westminster. Fixed term parliament would help to show more balance between the Commons and the Executive, since the Executive would therefore give away more of his/her powers. By doing so this would bring Britain in line with the rest of the world.
Another advantage of fixed date elections is that they do take into consideration of special circumstances, and take even more power from the PM. For example, if the House of Commons, with the support of two-thirds of its total membership, resolves "That there shall be an early parliamentary general election". This means that now even the MPs have power to call an election, besides calling a vote of no confidence.
However there are also several obvious disadvantages, for example when the date of a general election the time leading up to the election date would mean everything in government stops. This is because the governments tailor their policies accordingly, removing their main focus from running the country at the best of their abilities. Also, one could say that the opposition could fail to do their job properly in holding the government to account, since those parties themselves would be busy sorting out their own campaigns and manifestos.
Another disadvantage of fixed date elections is that this does completely take away power from the Prime Minister regarding a general election. For example, the Prime Minister has the power to defer a general election by up to two months, as long as the Houses of Common agrees, which it would since the government would normally have a majority.
One reason why fixed date elections are not a good idea is that one can say that the current system is not ‘broken’, and our current flexible system has worked well for centuries now. In addition, there is no evidence that fixed-term elections are better, who is to say that our current system is not better.
A major disadvantage of fixed-term Parliaments in the UK is that the term is five years long, which some argue is too long and is particularly longer than those in other countries such as Australia and New Zealand where the term is 3 years long. If there is such a long government, it has a possibility of becoming a ‘lame duck’ government, meaning it simply carries on without public approval and direction. Furthermore, the average parliaments were much shorter than five years; it was just over three years and nine months between 1945 and 2010. If the term is too prolonged, the government is likely to push through all the harsher bills earlier in their term, allowing them to please the electorate towards the end of the term. This results in loss of accountability of the government’s actions.
In conclusion there are many advantages and disadvantages of fixed date elections; however fixed date elections provide a better and fairer system in the future, providing a long term solution to the currently flawed system in which the Executive has more power. Therefore in the long term, fixed date elections are a good idea and beneficial to the public since the House of Commons will be more representative.