Fixed Term Parliaments Bill — Clause 2 — Immediate General Election Following Vote of No-Confidence — 1 Dec 2010 at 13:15

The majority of MPs voted against an immediate general election following a vote of no confidence in the Government; preferring instead to allow 14 days to see if a Government can secure the confidence of MPs.

MPs were considering the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill[1]. The amendment rejected in this vote was[2]:

  • Amendment 5: in page 2, line 11, leave out from ‘Government’ to end of line 14.

This would have resulted in deletion of part (b) of subclause (2) of the Bill as it stood at the time of the vote[3]. Subclause 2 stated:

  • An early parliamentary general election is also to take place if the Speaker of the House of Commons issues a certificate certifying that—
  • (a) on a specified day the House passed a motion of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government (as then constituted), and
  • (b) the period of 14 days after the specified day has ended without the House passing any motion expressing confidence in any Government of Her Majesty.
  • ...

During the debate Mark Harper MP explained his opposition to the amendment saying[4]:

  • At the moment, if a general election has an unclear outcome, the Prime Minister is able to test his support in the House of Commons. If the House then signalled that it did not have confidence in that Government, that Prime Minister would go and a new one could be appointed. Amendment 5 would insist that another general election took place, and if the result of that general election was unclear, we could end up having a succession of general elections. Amendment 5 would force such elections to be held.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alliance1 00100.0%
Con244 (+1 tell) 5 (+2 tell)082.4%
DUP6 0075.0%
Green1 00100.0%
Independent1 00100.0%
Lab192 1075.1%
LDem45 (+1 tell) 0080.7%
PC3 00100.0%
SDLP2 0066.7%
SNP3 0050.0%
Total:498 6079.0%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Philip DaviesShipleyCon (front bench)aye
Philip HolloboneKetteringCon (front bench)aye
Bernard JenkinHarwich and North EssexCon (front bench)tellaye
David NuttallBury NorthCon (front bench)tellaye
Laurence RobertsonTewkesburyCon (front bench)aye
Richard ShepherdAldridge-BrownhillsCon (front bench)aye
Andrew TurnerIsle of WightCon (front bench)aye
Ronnie CampbellBlyth ValleyLabaye

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