Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. We now have a different kind of Government. Had the numbers been slightly different, we might have been in a similar position—that is, in a coalition. However, I cannot imagine that one of our first Bills would have been to extend the life of that Parliament and put a statutory limit—not a flexible limit—on the length of our term, although some of my colleagues have asked why we did not think of the idea first, when we had a majority of 164 in 1997. Hindsight is a great thing. As for the length of Parliaments, I want to offer my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda an apology, because he was right when he said that there were three Parliaments that ran in excess of five years. There were three others—I have just added up the years; I did not have the benefit of the chart—that effectively ran for five years. However, I hope that he will accept that, taken together, it has been unusual to go beyond four years. There has been a strong element of honesty—certainly from this side of the Committee—about what happens in the fifth year of a Government. We have to be realistic about the dynamism and energy of a Government in their fifth year. I remember coming into the House in 1997 and hearing then Opposition Members—some of whom are now members of the Government—say that the fifth year of any Parliament is often the one in which the Government are tired and running out of steam. You might remember hearing similar comments, Miss Begg. I do not think that creating fixed Parliaments of five years will change that dynamic of politics. Four years is the time it takes a Government to put a programme in place and to deal with the major issues that it came to power to deal with. Another element, which I find distasteful, is that this Government are seeking to extend their own life. I would have more respect for this legislation if it extended the life of the next Parliament. At no time did either of the political parties that now form the Government say that they would extend the life of this Government by an extra year.