Brown vindicated over Downing Street exit
Gordon Brown was right to resign when he did, a committee of MPs has concluded.
The Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee has said that clearer guidance is needed to determine the circumstances under which a prime minister should resign, however.
In its report on the coalition formation process published today, MPs say the former prime minister resigned at a “constitutionally appropriate time”.
The ex-Labour leader was criticised in the aftermath of the general election’s hung parliament result both for staying in No 10 too long and for exiting prematurely.
He quit on Tuesday May 11th, five days after voters had denied David Cameron’s Conservatives, the largest party in the Commons, an overall majority.
“[Mr Brown] did not have a constitutional obligation to remain in office for longer, nor to resign sooner,” the report found.
It called for better guidance about when an incumbent prime minister should resign and when he has a duty to remain in office.
Clarification is needed over “whether this extends to a duty to remain in office until there is clarity as to the form of an alternative government, as opposed to simply the name of an alternative prime minister”, MPs wrote.
A Cabinet manual published in 2010 has met with mixed reaction, the report noted, suggesting “it may not go far enough” to resolve the issue.
“Following the May 2010 general election, constitutional conventions were put to the test and a range of practical issues emerged,” committee chair Graham Allen said.
“Our report makes a number of suggestions for dealing with these issues. We also set out the arguments both for and against the idea of an investiture vote – an idea we may look at again in the context of the new inquiry we have just announced into the role of the prime minister.”
The report also suggested placing the coalition’s programme for government before the Commons for full pre-legislative scrutiny, arguing this step is justified because the programme cannot be put directly to the people.
