What could happen at washup?

The legislative endgame of every Parliament is the "washup" - an exercise in speed law-making in which outstanding bills are usually filleted of everything controversial and voted through, in the last 48 or 72 hours before a dissolution.

The process normally involves intense negotiations between party business managers in both houses - and then the rapid dispatch of those bills they can agree on - including, crucially, a slimline version of the Finance Bill, to authorise essential taxes. If that fails, HM Revenue and Customs can't take their customary cut of our earnings, and all manner of dire consequences would follow. Or so we're told.

If - as is universally expected - Gordon Brown asks the Queen to dissolve Parliament immediately after Easter, that would allow two or three days of washup time, to clear outstanding bills, before the music stopped and the politicians headed off for a rendezvous with fate, and the electorate.

The government majority in the Commons will guarantee it gets its way there - but the most interesting action will be in the Lords. There, no party has a majority, and the rules of the Upper House make it hard for any bill to proceed, other than by consensus. They have to suspend the standing order that prevents more than one stage of a bill being taken in a single day, and then vote through any agreed amendments to bills in very rapid time, before giving them a third reading and dispatching them off for the Royal Assent.

But the whole process breaks down if the rapid fire voting is not unanimous, and there have to be divisions on particular issues. Each division can take 20 minutes or so, and if the House is divided repeatedly on amendments, the time available to get bills through will evaporate very rapidly. So even a small awkward squad of peers can throw the whole washup into chaos if they feel their concerns are not being taken seriously.

Which is where the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (CRAG for short) comes in. This is one of those vast, sprawling omnibus measures that contain something for everyone. It provides for a referendum on changing the electoral system to AV (alternative vote), for phasing out the 92 hereditary peers who continue to sit in the Upper House, for tidying up the law around the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) and for reforming the civil service. These are, respectively, ultra-controversial, pretty controversial, considered essential by all the party leaderships, and widely supported on all sides.

The AV referendum is opposed by the Conservatives, and is widely seen as a ploy by Gordon Brown to attract Lib Dem voters. A lot of Lib Dems hope the government will try to force it through - and are positioning themselves to cry foul, if ministers don't make the effort. The removal of the 92 hereditaries - unfinished business from the last round of Lords reform - would be a major constitutional change, and would probably run foul of their Lordships as well. But the proposal could position Labour to accuse the Conservatives of voting to keep hereditary privilege. Tidying up IPSA is something all parties want - but there will doubtless be voices saying that detailed rule-changes should not just be waved through into law, without the kind of painstaking scrutiny peers normally deliver.

Finally, a statutory basis for the civil service is something reformers have wanted since the late Victorian era. But that part of the bill was not debated in the Commons, and there are a lot of detailed issues outstanding - a point which worries Conservative constitutional scholar Lord Norton of Louth. And he's not alone. The thought of waving through unscrutinised legislation on such a complex topic makes many peers rather queasy. The Lords tend to regard MPs as a rather feckless bunch who, left to themselves, would speed any old rubbish through into law - they like to think they have higher standards.

Lord Grocott, the former government Chief Whip in the Lords, says instinctive resistance to fast-track legislating is in the DNA of peers. They don't like the force feeding process of the washup, even in the glow of all-party consensus. He thinks a majority would not tolerate an attempt to force through controversial measures. But on the Lib Dem side, Lord Tyler, a wily ex-Commons whip, hints that if Labour and his party have the political will, they could force through some of the reforms they like, even in the teeth of Tory opposition. The last couple of washups have taken place in the expectation that a Labour government would be re-elected. Not this time. So will ministers see this as perhaps their last chance to pass some cherished policies - or at least set up a few political elephant traps? It will make the last days of this Parliament pretty interesting. Assuming anyone's watching.

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