13 Rules for Resolving a Hung Parliament

Having heard rather a lot of muddled thinking from politicians, gargling journalists and on Newsnight from no less than Lord Armstrong, sometime Cabinet secretary, I thought I would try and state the constitutional conventions as clearly as I can.

If there are any Constitutional Lawyers left in the UK they might well want to add to these rules. It is hoped that Anthony Howard and Peter Hennessey will be made great use of during the election programmes as they are fascinating authorities to listen to on this and many other political and constitutional matters. Here for what it is worth is my penny worth, which I suspect will be challenged as being divorced from reality or inaccurate by the time Rules 12 and 13 are reached, if not before.

The Queen
I do not expect the Queen to get in contact as she will be too busy getting ready for watching the results come in or getting an early night. She received one to one tutorials on the British Constitution from the age of 13 at Eton College just across the road from Windsor Castle. Her teacher was Sir Henry Marten and the teaching was probably based on the writing of the Victorian Walter Bagehot. She has seen the Constitution operate with regard to Prime Ministers' Harold Wilson and Edward Heath after the 1974 election and so she will not need to do much homework in preparation for a stalemate on Friday. Her great grandfather King George the V became familiar with the rules during the great Constitutional crisis which led to the Parliament Act 1911 so there is some family experience involved here. On being advised by his Private Secretary that he was constitutionally obliged to follow the advice of his Prime Minister in all circumstances, even if he was advised to sign his own death warrant, the King replied in his usual nautical language, ‘If he did, I’d shoot the bugger dead!’

Even if Queen Elizabeth II might feel like using strong language I suspect that the handbag on the table and the regal look might be enough to discomfort a modern Prime Minister.The rules that follow are constitutional big time and hopefully will never need to be applied through to Rule13 because I suspect it would be lucky for none.

Contingency Plan
The current Cabinet Secretary's contingency plan is designed to allow time for the Prime Minister to establish whether he can form a Government from the new House of Commons. If the Conservatives win an overall majority of 326 seats or more he must resign and recommend that Mr Cameron be asked to form a government, If there is no overall majority then the Prime Minister will have to decide whether he can do a deal with another party so that he can either run a minority government or form a co-coalition or pact of some kind. If the Conservatives do not reach 326 seats but nevertheless have more seats than Labour and Liberals combined, then he will have to consider resigning he should advise the Queen to invite Mr Cameron to form a minority government.

In all such negotiations the Queen should not be involved although the Prime Minister is under a duty to keep her informed. The Opening of Parliament is set for May 23rd so whatever the outcome the new Government must present its Queens Speech to Parliament to accept or reject.

The 13 rules for resolving a hung parliament
I think i have covered all the points but I must confess that by the time I got to the end of Rule 13 I felt I was entering an Alice in Wonderland constitution.

1) The Prime Minister is the Queens principle adviser until he resigns
2) The Queen must always act on the advice of her Prime Minister
3) The Prime Minister must give reliable advice to the Queen
4) The Queen may advise, encourage and/or warn her Prime Minster
5) The Queen cannot insist that her advice etc shall be followed
6) The Queen may only have a person as Prime Minister if he or she commands the support of the majority of the House of Commons
7) Until that confidence is clearly not available the PM can stay in office
8) The PM is entitled to establish whether or not that confidence will be forthcoming when the Government presents its programme to the House Commons in the Queens Speech.
9) If that cannot be done then the Prime Minister should resign and recommend who else should be invited to form a Government.
10) If the Prime Minister’s party, and its other supporters, have not won the vote on the Queens speech the Prime Minister would ask the Queen for a dissolution of Parliament and a new election should follow.
11)The Queen should not intervene and should await advice from the Prime Minister but her Private secretary will keep her informed in the meantime.

It now gets a bit unpleasant:

12) It would seem that the Queen may not be obliged to grant a dissolution. She might ask the Prime Minister to see if he or another person could form a government.In the event of losing such a vote the Prime Minister can either resign with a recommendation to the Queen as to who he thinks will be able to form a Government, or ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament so that a new election could be held.

13) The Queen being entitled to advise, encourage and warn, will seek advice from the Prime minister as to whether another election would be in the nations interest due to e.g., a serious run on the pound or public hostility etc. There would have to be something seriously wrong either with the UK's position or the Prime Minister if the Queen was to delay in responding to Prime Ministers request for another election. She is entitled to seek the advice of others such as Privy Councillors to see that there is no possibility of forming a Government from the recently elected House of Commons. If the Prime Minister insists that a General Election is the only way forward the Queen would be obliged to follow his advice. However, if the Queen feels that someone else might be able to form a Government she could take the highly risky step of inviting another person to do so, but of course the Prime Minister might refuse to resign. In which case the Queen can advise, encourage and warn him of the consequences and should follow convention and dissolve Parliament. If she did refuse the Prime Ministers request this would be a major departure from the usual and it could be seen as ‘unconstitutional’ although it would be completely within the law. It would also be perfectly lawful for the Queen to dismiss the Prime Minister in these circumstances but again this could be seen as unconstitutional.

The Queen is required to keep above politics but at the same time must act on the advice of politicians. It is up to the politicians to get their act together when a Hung Parliament arises. Should she receive advice which could causes excessive damage to the nation she will warn. If the position is so severe she could act as a constitutional long stop. Such circumstances could put the Constitutional Monarchy itself in jeopardy. The Queens obligation is to protect the Constitution in accordance with her Coronation Oath. No Prime Minister should put the Monarch in such a position as he himself would be seen to be undermining the Constitution.

While we are at the limits of constitutional bad case scenarios, the Queen would probably be taking little risk to sack a Prime Minster who refused to resign after failing to form a Government or losing a vote of confidence and did not want a further election. There would be no Government and the Queens intervention would be the only legal course of ending the stalemate.