Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I am not sure that that is right because, for example, there were no women in this House or in the other House for many centuries. So changes have taken place, and change is just as important as continuity—that was going to be my argument. The hon. Member for North East Somerset praised the House of Lords and the job of work it is doing at the moment down the other end of the building, where I hope his father will be stoutly defending not the Government but the cause of freedom and democracy—I am sure he will be. I wish to sound a slight note of caution to the hon. Gentleman. I have long supported an elected second Chamber, but over the past few years the Second Chamber has become far more partisan, because a higher proportion of its Members now take a party Whip. That applies in all parts of that House. [Interruption.] The Minister says from a sedentary position that Labour Members do, but what I said is true of all political parties in the House of Lords. I hope that there will be an elected second Chamber, and if there is the relationship between the Chambers will have to be written down in statute. Otherwise, either there will be permanent gridlock or, even more dangerously, we will face the problem of the Government having absolutely no check on them because they will enjoy a majority in this House and down the other end of the building. I can think of no other system in the world containing no such check. I say to the hon. Member for North East Somerset that although one praises the House of Lords, where Labour and Cross-Bench peers are doing a good job of scrutiny, some dangers are coming down the road. The hon. Member for North East Somerset also relied on the Salisbury convention, whereby the Lords would not stand in the way of something adumbrated in a general election manifesto on which a Government were elected. In the previous Parliament the Liberal Democrats said that they believed that the Salisbury convention no longer held. I suspect that a convention written in a gentlemen's club and redrafted several times during the 20th century probably will not stand the test of time and we will need something rather more secure for our constitutional settlement. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Bill extends Parliament's life beyond the five-year period that, thus far, has been allowed; clause 1 allows the Prime Minister to extend or shorten the five-year fixed term by two months, although that is reliant on motions in this House and in the second Chamber. That is one of the many reasons we have argued that the Bill will lead to fewer general elections. That is so particularly because the Bill provides for a five-year term, rather than a four-year term, as the hon. Member for Stone said, but also because of the special provision allowing for the extra extension of two months. We believe that that is a problem and that the voters of this country probably want us not to have the longest fixed-term Parliaments in the world. If we are to have fixed-term Parliaments, voters would probably prefer us to adopt the policy of the Liberal Democrats before the general election and the policy that Labour has pursued ever since the Plant commission, when we were mired deep in opposition many years ago, which is for four-year fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, that is not available to us in the Bill. I am afraid that I disagree with the means used by the hon. Member for North East Somerset to answer the problem. Section 2(1) of the Parliament Act 1911 states:"““If any Public Bill (other than a Money Bill or a Bill containing any provision to extend the maximum duration of Parliament beyond five years) is passed by the House of Commons””" and it goes on to delineate the provisions, as amended by the later Parliament Act, that allow the Speaker to move straight to Royal Assent, often at Prorogation—we will come on to Prorogation later—without having to pass through the House of Lords, if the House of Lords has refused to co-operate. There is therefore already sufficient power to ensure that Parliament cannot be extended, which is the key point. One thing that successive generations have tried to reinforce is the need for frequent elections. The Triennial Acts and the various different versions that that legislation has gone through, from three years to seven years, the campaigns by the Chartists for annual elections and the return to a proposal for five years have all been centred on the belief that there should be sufficient and regular elections for the Government to enjoy a mandate and for the people to have their voice. I can see that the hon. Member for Stone is itching to intervene, so I shall let him do so.