Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I speak from the opposition Front Bench at this stage. I am not for a moment trying to shorten the debate. It is a very important subject and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, among others, has waited for years for a proper debate on this topic. The last thing I want to do is to stop that debate. The Minister knows, and I have told the Committee, that I have some personal difficulties that require me to leave in fairly short order. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if on this occasion I put the view of the opposition Front Bench very briefly and then leave. Of course the opposition Front Bench will be filled very adequately in my absence. I say briefly that the Committee should be very grateful for the two opening speeches in this debate—the introduction from my noble friend Lord Howarth and the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, about weekend voting. At the very least it is necessary for the Government to think very carefully about the advantages—and the disadvantages, which the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Pannick, have hinted at—of changing from Thursday voting to weekend voting. It is an issue that ought to have been debated in Parliament a long time ago; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, exactly about that. It was particularly interesting, sitting where we sit, to hear the language used by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in the sense that he was looking not just for a debate that would end in a few fine words but for some kind of decision on this issue. If I heard him right, he thought that this was the appropriate Bill for such an issue to be finally resolved under. Am I wrong about that?