Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Since my elevation to the Back Benches six weeks ago, I have put a number of supplementary questions by way of interventions. This is the first time that I have spoken from the Back Benches in 23 years. It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who represents my home area, Loughton in Essex, where from a very early age I used to be sent out delivering leaflets and canvassing against the local Conservative party, never to any effect. My mother continued to represent the area in which we lived, first on the district council and later on the town council, until she was in her 80s. Thankfully, she is still alive. I have witnessed many occasions when a Member has moved an amendment that they do not understand. Indeed, I can think of one occasion 30 years ago on the Finance Bill when I moved an amendment that I did not understand—an embarrassment made worse by the fact that it was I who had drafted it. For the life of me, I could not work out what it meant, although I am pleased to say that officials in the Treasury, as it turned out—the Minister later showed me his briefing—had gone through all sorts of intellectual contortions to guess at that piece of total gibberish. Never before have I heard an hon. Member from either side of the House move an amendment with which they profoundly disagreed, but I admire the way in which the hon. Lady very loyally made the case for the group's lead amendment while ensuring that her own reservations about it were put on the record. The hon. Lady said something very important about the Bill: the reason why the Select Committee ended up with the amendment, which is difficult to follow in its terms, was that it had ““rushed through pre-legislative scrutiny””. That is the responsibility not of the Committee, but very much of the Government, who decided to push the Bill through for no reason that I can comprehend. I profoundly disagree with the Government's timetable for the boundaries and AV referendum Bill, but, given the time scale involved, it is at least understandable why they judge it necessary to push the legislation through. The Bill before us is on fixed-term Parliaments, however, and there is not the least prospect of an early general election at any time in the next three years.