The legislative process in Britain consists of a series of discrete stages, each with its own purpose and function. A bill’s second reading is the discussion of, and vote on, the principle of the legislation. As Erskine May, the so-called bible of parliamentary procedure, puts it: “Its whole principle is at issue, and is affirmed or denied by the House.”
The last time a government lost a vote on the second reading of one of its own bills was 1986. The significance of that particular vote is not just that it took place almost 40 years ago, but that it was the only occasion a government with a working majority lost a bill at second reading in the entire 20th century. So, while we can say that it would not be unprecedented if the government went down to defeat over the Rwanda bill, it would be extremely unusual.
And while the defeat in 1986 was embarrassing, the shops bill, which attempted to liberalise Sunday trading laws, was not a central plank of the Thatcher government’s programme. The Rwanda vote is on something much more significant. Its defeat would leave a void where the government’s immigration policy was meant to be.
