Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

May I begin by thanking the Minister for the enormous courtesy, good manners and good temper with which he has responded to the many criticisms of the Bill? I, among others, do not think it the best Bill ever to have come before Parliament, but he has invariably answered questions kindly. I also thank the Clerks for warning me that I was, in their terminology, to ““open the batting”” in this debate, which I might not otherwise have known. As far as cricketing metaphors go, I am probably more of a night watchman than a Geoffrey Boycott, or Somerset's own Trescothick, but I shall bat on with regard to the Parliament Act 1911 and my new clause in relation to it. The 1911 Act, as the hon. Member for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) reminded us earlier today, was introduced, broadly, as a temporary measure. The preamble to the Act says:"““whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation””," but ““immediately”” has now extended to 100 years of failure to introduce a popular rather than an hereditary form, although not all elements of heredity remain in the upper House. The 1911 Act still allows the House of Commons to get through major constitutional reforms that the House of Lords may oppose. The reason for introducing my new clause to exempt purely the first section of the Bill—the bit that limits the life of a Parliament specifically to five years, rather than continuing with the flexibility that we have previously had—is that this is a crucial constitutional development that we should be careful about changing, willy-nilly, as coalitions come and go. Our constitution should be safeguarded and preserved; it is not something that should be treated lightly or in an airy-fairy fashion—and one thing that the House of Lords can do, and do extraordinarily well, is prevent that from happening. By the way, it is notable that their lordships sat throughout last night, fulfilling their proper constitutional role of ensuring that a serious constitutional change is properly debated and reviewed. We in this House find that guillotines come crashing down upon our necks to prevent the detailed deliberation that some of us might like over a rapid raft of changes to the constitution, but their lordships—some of whom are not in their first youth—have stayed up overnight, battling for the great British constitution, which has served us extraordinarily well for hundreds of years. Looking upon their lordships as the guardians of the constitution is a good reason for ensuring that the measure cannot be changed without their consent and approval.