Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I am always a bit reluctant to presume what the House of Lords' final view might be, not least because three new Members of the House of Lords are being introduced every day at the moment—it is something of a moving feast down the far end of the corridor. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the Clerk of the Parliaments, and incidentally I want to pass on congratulations to Mr Beamish, who has just been appointed the new Clerk of the Parliaments. It is also true that the Clerk of this House has made it clear that there are significant concerns about clause 2, which I shall come on to when I discuss the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Stone. I am also always very grateful for any oleaginous support I can get. The point I hope to make about new clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for North East Somerset, is that I think that there is already adequate provision in the Parliament Act to ensure that Parliament cannot be extended. His new clause would apply to the whole of clause 1, so we would not be able to amend any of the elements of it, even if they had been adumbrated in a manifesto commitment and a single party won the next general election with a majority and legislated in that way. We would not be able to use the Parliament Act even to shorten the length of a Parliament. If we win the next general election, I hope we will—notwithstanding the fact that we will have won, in a sense, the right for a five-year fixed-term Parliament—want to reduce the number of years from five years to four. As the hon. Member for North East Somerset has shown, historical consistency across the years is a good political attribute rather than a failing.