Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

On the contrary, I myself went to sleep, but not during my own speeches—although I might have done, and indeed the noble Lord might have supposed that I had done. I concede that at certain points. We are about to resume a proper practice of scrutiny in the best traditions of your Lordships’ House. It is particularly important given that there was no Green Paper heralding this legislation, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny, yet this Bill is of very great constitutional importance in itself and its provisions interact with other constitutional measures. For example, they interact with the provisions for boundary reviews that we just legislated in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. They interact with provisions that we can anticipate in a draft measure for reform of your Lordships’ House. They interact with the contents that we can anticipate of a draft parliamentary privileges Bill, which we are led to expect. I think that it would have been better if the Government’s proposals in all these respects had been laid out and available for pre-legislative scrutiny rather than that Parliament was required, effectively, to legislate on aspects of the constitution without having the ability to consider the interplay between different reforming measures. However, I am encouraged by what the Deputy Prime Minister said in the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House on 13 October last year in responding to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: "““Of course, what matters now is the degree of scrutiny that””," the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, "““is subject to as the legislation passes through both Houses. On that we are very clear. We want to make sure that it is subject to the greatest possible scrutiny, which it rightly deserves””." In that spirit, I beg to move Amendment 1 in my name. The Bill, as drafted, prescribes polling at general elections on a Thursday. It ignores the debate about the case for polling at weekends or other ways in which polling can be facilitated for our citizens. It effectively closes down that debate, which has been proceeding somewhat desultorily for a number of years. However, it is a proper debate and I do not think that it should be instantly closed down. We all have a major concern about how to improve participation in elections in this country. I am indebted to the Library of the House of Commons for a chart that it has provided in one of its notes, which shows a tendency for turnout at general elections to have declined significantly between 1950 and 2010. The bar chart indicates that in 1950 turnout in the general election of that year was of the order of 83 per cent. It fell a little bit at subsequent elections, but in February 1974 it was at or very close to 80 per cent, which is remarkable. Of course, the country was in crisis at that time and it was perceived to be an exceptionally important election. Nevertheless, looking back from where we are now, we would regard it as quite remarkable that turnout was 80 per cent in February weather conditions in 1974.