Does anything prevent a no-confidence vote in the UK Government at this time?

Question

The latest UK Prime Minister is currently in quite a bad spot. The universally panned mini-budget has inflicted so much chaos the BoE has had to step in, and the Chancellor has been sacked a little over a month into the job.

The i is reporting that as many as 100 Tory MPs have submitted no confidence votes to the 1922 committee well above the 15% threshold, such that only the party rules regarding a grace period are preventing her from being replaced by her own MPs through an internal confidence vote.

Numerous Labour MPs are on record saying a general election is now required, hardly surprising given their current polling.

Is something preventing Labour seeking a vote of no confidence in the Government?

Answer 1

You should distinguish between a vote in Parliament, and a vote in the Conservative party. These are very different, with different rules and different outcomes.

There is nothing preventing a confidence vote in the government held in Parliament. The loss of this vote would likely lead to a General Election.

However that would not be a no-confidence in Liz Truss. It would be a vote on the Conservative government. It is unlikely that Conservative party MPs would vote against the Government, and in favour of an election.

The Labour Party may put down a confidence vote, but it would be merely a symbolic act, with practically no chance of passing

A no-confidence vote in Truss would be a Conservative party internal vote. The current rules of the Conservative party do not allow for confidence votes in the leader in the first year after taking office. If the Party rules were changed, and the no-confidence voted passed, then Liz Truss would be required to step down as PM when a new Leader of the Conservative party was chosen, but there would be no requirement for a General Election.

Answer 2

No, there’s nothing preventing Labour from doing so. According to paragraph 18.44 of Erskine May;

By established convention, the Government always accedes to the demand from the Leader of the Opposition to allot a day for the discussion of a motion tabled by the official Opposition which, in the Government's view, would have the effect of testing the confidence of the House. In allotting a day for this purpose, the Government is entitled to have regard to the exigencies of its own business, but a reasonably early day is invariably found.

Even if the Government refused to adhere to this ‘established convention’, there is coincidentally an Opposition Day tomorrow (October 19th) during which Labour has control of the parliamentary time table under Standing Order 14. We’ll see if there’s a dramatic change of schedule allowed by the Speaker, but at the time of writing there are two opposition debates scheduled - one titled “Economic responsibility and a plan for growth”, and one on on the “Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill”.

However, confidence votes tend to have the effect of rallying MPs of the governing party around the leadership - even if temporarily - see, for example, the motion of no confidence laid by Jeremy Corbyn in Theresa May’s government at the beginning of 2019.

Given that Conservative MPs currently seem to need no further encouragement to openly attack Truss’s premiership, but have not (yet) taken steps to remove her from the party leadership by changing the rules of the 1922 committee, it is unlikely that enough would openly vote against a Conservative government in the Commons. This is underlined by the fact that if a confidence vote did topple the government, and a general election were called, given the current polling many Conservative MPs would lose their jobs, and two extra years of an £84k salary is pretty hard to pass up. Even if certain MPs remain confident in retaining their seats, voting against the party leadership in a confidence vote is a sure-fire way to lose the party whip and be deselected, meaning they’d have to run as independents.