Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I wonder if I may be permitted to make a general point, briefly, as we move into Committee, before I come to the specific matter of Amendment 1. I tabled this and other amendments after I had seen last Thursday that only eight amendments had been tabled to this Bill in Committee. I began to be worried that we might not conduct a proper scrutiny of the Bill in Committee—the very opposite hazard to that which we faced with the previous major constitutional Bill, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I have tabled rather a lot of amendments, but I assure the House that neither I nor my colleagues intend to mount a filibuster on this Bill—nor did we on the previous Bill. We tabled some dozens of amendments, but that was very modest indeed compared for example to the opposition parties in the Assemblée nationale de France in 2006, when in opposition to the Government’s measure to reduce the state’s shareholding in Gaz de France they tabled 137,449 amendments. That was a real filibuster. Noble Lords will also be aware that the earliest recorded instance of the practice of the filibuster was on the part of Cato the Younger, who talked out proceedings in the Roman senate because he believed that it was important to resist the ambitions of Julius Caesar, flushed with victory, to flout the conventions of the Roman republic. Of course, for Julius Caesar read Nicholas Clegg—and our task has been to resist the Caesarism of Mr Nicholas Clegg. In all seriousness, I believe that the point at issue in our proceedings on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, aside from the particular contents of that legislation, was the continuing ability of this House to perform its role as a revising Chamber. Proceeding in a fashion whereby legislation is scrutinised on all sides of the House, we move things forward on the basis of reasoned debate and the Government listen and accept well made arguments, particularly when supported by majority opinion in this House. But I am encouraged because I need not have feared last Thursday that there would not be enough amendments. Happily, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Lords have tabled considerable numbers of amendments. They have awakened from their long slumber during the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, looks deprecatingly at me, and if he will let me finish my sentence I shall give way to him. It is certainly the case that we heard him sleep-talking and occasionally we heard the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, groan. But in the main, there was a very disappointing lack of participation from noble Lords on the other side of the House on that Bill.