Fixed Term Parliaments Bill

That is not exactly true, for reasons that I shall explain later—they relate to the answer that I gave the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall)—but even if it were true, I do not think the hon. Lady would be right. I know that the leadership of my own party made a point similar to hers last year, but I do not agree with it, because I consider that we are a parliamentary rather than a presidential democracy. I think that the idea that every time there is a change at the top there must be an election takes us in the wrong direction, down the road of a presidential system. I prefer our traditional parliamentary system. That brings me to my next point, which relates to what happens in other countries and elsewhere in our own country. It is true that fixed terms are far from universal. I do not claim that the fixed-term system is the one that everyone else uses, and that we are out of line. There is a division of opinion in mature democracies. In France, for instance, there are no fixed terms: the President can dissolve the Assembly at will. The best known example of a fixed-term system is the system in the United States, which has strict fixed terms with no escape clause. That, however, is not the normal way in which fixed terms are arranged in mature democracies. There is normally a fixed term, but also some mechanism for escaping from a form of political deadlock. If stable government becomes impossible, most fixed-term systems involve some way out of that deadlock, although it usually requires a much broader political consensus than simply a decision by the Government to call an election. In Germany, for example, there is quite a complicated mechanism, whereas in Spain there is a very simple mechanism: a four-year fixed term, and if they cannot get a new Prime Minister within two months of the election another election is held; the Government have no power in the process. There is a similar idea in the Scotland Act 1998 and the Government of Wales Act 2006: the Scottish Parliament sits for four years and the only exception is if a new First Minister cannot be found within 28 days, and there is a similar system for Wales. There is another type of system, the best example of which is in Sweden. There are regular elections every four years. The Government can call extra elections, but if they do so they do not get a new four-year term; they get only the end of the previous term. Therefore, they cannot cause the regular four-year election cycle to stop, which reduces their incentive to try to take a short-term advantage.