The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act was supposed to bring about a culture change in the parliament and politics of the United Kingdom. Moving for the second reading of the bill that became this Act, Nick Clegg (then deputy prime minister, now member for Facebook Central) summarized that culture shift.
The Bill has a single, clear purpose: to introduce fixed-term Parliaments to the United Kingdom to remove the right of a Prime Minister to seek the Dissolution of Parliament for pure political gain. This simple constitutional innovation will none the less have a profound effect because for the first time in our history the timing of general elections will not be a plaything of Governments. There will be no more feverish speculation over the date of the next election, distracting politicians from getting on with running the country. Instead everyone will know how long a Parliament can be expected to last, bringing much greater stability to our political system. Crucially, if, for some reason, there is a need for Parliament to dissolve early, that will be up to the House of Commons to decide. Everyone knows the damage that is done when a Prime Minister dithers and hesitates over the election date, keeping the country guessing. We were subjected to that pantomime in 2007. All that happens is that the political parties end up in perpetual campaign mode, making it very difficult for Parliament to function effectively. The only way to stop that ever happening again is by the reforms contained in the Bill.
As we hammer out the detail of these reforms, I hope that we are all able to keep sight of the considerable consensus that already exists on the introduction of fixed-term Parliaments. They were in my party’s manifesto, they have been in Labour party manifestos since 1992, and although this was not an explicit Conservative election pledge, the Conservative manifesto did include a commitment to making the use of the royal prerogative subject to greater democratic control, ensuring that Parliament is properly involved in all big, national decisions—and there are few as big as the lifetime of Parliament and the frequency of general elections.
When a parliament is convened, the date of the next general election automatically gets scheduled for the first Thursday in May, five years out. The Commons could vote, with a qualified majority, to hold an election earlier, or an election would automatically be triggered if the government lost a no-confidence vote, but the prime minister cannot unilaterally declare an election date to suit their popularity with the franchise.
Observed behaviour shows that the Act has been followed to the letter, up to the current dissolution which required a specific change to the rules. Has the spirit of the Act, the motivation presented above, survived intact? The dates of elections since the Act passed were:
- 7 May 2015, the first Thursday in May at the end of a five-ish-year Parliament, chosen to bring the existing behaviour into sync with the planned behaviour.
- 8 June 2017, after a qualified majority vote within the terms of the Act.
- 12 December 2019, after the aforementioned Early Parliamentary General Election Act.
The reason for the disparity is that the intended goal—a predictable release schedule that makes it easier for everyone involved to prepare—doesn’t match the cultural drivers. The desire to release when we’re ready, and have the features that we want to see, remains immutable, and means that even though we’ve adopted the new rules, we aren’t really playing by them.
I was tempted to hit “publish” at this point and leave the software engineering analogy unspoken. I powered on: here are a few examples I’ve seen where the rule changes have been imposed but the cultural support for the new rules hasn’t been nurtured.
- Regular releases, but the release is “internal only” or completely unreleased until all of the planned features are ready;
- Short sprints, where everything that has gone from development into QA is declared “done”;
- Sprint commitments, where the team also describe “stretch goals” that are expected to be delivered;
- Sustainable pace, where the “velocity” is expected to increase monotonically;
- Self-organizing teams, where the manager feeds back on everybody’s status update at the daily stand-up;
- Continuous integration, where the team can disable or skip tests that fail.
All of these can be achieved without the attached sabotage, but that requires more radical changes than adding a practice to the team’s menu. Radical, because you have to go to the root of why you’re doing what you do. Ask what you’re even trying to achieve by having a software team working on your software, then compare how well your existing practice and your proposed practice support that value. If the proposed practice is better, then adopt it, but there’s going to be a transition period where you continually explain why you’re adopting it, show the results, and (constructively, politely, and firmly) guide people toward acceptance of and commitment to the new practice. Otherwise you end up with a new fixed-term parliament starting whenever people feel like it.
