The government is running out of time

In policy and legislative terms the clock is already against the government

In the words of the eminent jurist Paul Simon:

“Time, time, time
See what's become of me

“Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities”

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One hard structural fact about the politics of the United Kingdom is that the government is running out of time.

By automatic operation of law the next general election has to take place by 28 January 2025.

That gives the current government about 580 days left, maximum, before a general election which many forecast that the governing Conservative party will lose.

About 580 days sounds a lot, but it really is not - at least in parliamentary terms.

That date presupposes that the general election is called at the last possible moment - 17 December 2024 - leaving the longest possible election campaign.

Current speculation is that the next general election will be in October 2024, which means the last parliamentary session will need to be over by September 2024, and given summer breaks, that basically means legislation will need to passed by June/July 2024.

So that is about 365 to 400 days.

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We are still - remarkably - within the same parliamentary session that commenced two prime ministers and one monarch ago in May 2022.

And as the Hansard Society averred in May, few of the Bills announced in that speech have become law:

It is expected that there will be a new King’s Speech this November.

This means that it is highly likely that there is just one more parliamentary session left before a general election - November 2023 to June/July 2024.

(There is the theoretical possibility of more than one remaining parliamentary term if the government has a sequence of truncated parliamentary sessions, with multiple openings of parliament.)

One implication of there being only one more parliamentary session before an election is that it is probable that there is not enough time to force any new legislation through the House of Lords under the Parliament Act, for that requires a Bill to be approved in successive sessions.

And then there are the recesses:

As one adds up the delays and holidays, and the speculation of an election by October 2024, the gross figure of 580 days becomes a lot less in practical legislative terms.

The grand hourglass of parliamentary time is running out for the current government.

We are not talking years, we are now talking months - and soon we will be talking weeks.

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And not only time is against them - there is the problem of legislative preparation.

Put simply: this government is not very good at preparing legislation.

As the Hansard Society politely put it:

Parliamentary time for bills should not be, say, “step one'‘ of a process but about “step four” - after policy formulation, consultation and development - all within or by departments.

And so if you factor in the time to actually put together new practical - that is, passable - legislation then not even the maximum 580 days are really enough.

Even if following the conference season this year there is a “whizz-bang” King’s Speech with lots of legislative proposals, that whizzery and bangery needs to being prepared now in departments, and there is not a lot of evidence of any whizzery and bangery taking place anywhere in Whitehall at present.

Not only does the government need enough time to get legislation through parliament and implement it before the next general election, ministers and departments need lead-in times to get the legislation to be in any state to pass.

The time left looks very tight.

Too tight.

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What we have is a government that not only is running out of time, but in some ways has already ran out of time to do anything radical and substantial in its one (likely) remaining parliamentary term.

And what makes this even more remarkable that this is a government elected in December 2019, on the back of Brexit, which had a substantial majority - only the second overall majority the Conservatives had had since 1992.

In legislative and policy terms, that majority has been largely wasted.

(Which may be a good or bad thing, depending on your politics.)

This is a government running out of possibilities.

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“Time, time, time
See what's become of me

“Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities”