Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the length of the period between elections in normal times. If it is agreed that five years will be written into legislation, over a period of 20 years the electorate will be denied an opportunity to go to the polls to decide what form the Government will take and which Government will be returned. We had an opportunity last week to hear the Minister on this matter. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, was good enough to talk about it. He said that the present system gave awesome power to the Prime Minister of the day. However, what seems to have happened in the room that was talked about in the story from the autobiography of Mr Laws is that awesome power was given to the people around that table. It strikes me that many of the people around that table, who may be very good at economics and other matters, were not experienced parliamentarians. If they had been experienced parliamentarians, they would have said what I am saying today: four years is far better than five. I ask the Minister to consider four years for the sake of the House and how it operates. I know what he said last week, when we had a warm-up and were able to hear some of his thinking. That is good; we could then think about what he had to say and come back, as we have today. I think the Minister said that his case was that in the fifth year Members of Parliament decide that they want to be in their constituencies. That is not because they are lazy—far from it. They want to work on the hustings; they know an election is coming up and want to be in their constituency. The Minister’s case was that they would do that in the fourth year. However, they would not do that because the Government would not run out of legislation in the fourth year. Therefore, if Members of Parliament missed three-line Whips, it would be duly noted in their constituency. Constituents would say, ““Why was he or she here on a Tuesday, missing a three-line Whip?””. That is an incentive to keep Members of Parliament here in the fourth year, rather than in the fifth. I bolster the case about Governments running out of legislation in the fifth year. The House of Commons Library tells me that in 2009-10 Session, there was not one vote taken on the Floor of the House of Commons on a Thursday. They had topical debates on a Thursday. Some were on very important matters but they were debates. On Thursdays we turned the House of Commons into a debating society, which meant there was no record of whether anyone turned up to represent their constituents. I reiterate what I said the other week. Tam Dalyell, an excellent parliamentarian, told me as a young MP, ““Michael, if they want you, tell them you will be available on a Saturday or a Friday night. Don’t take the sleeper up to Glasgow and then get back down for the vote. Tell them that your job is to be in the House of Commons””. However, the Executive of the House of Commons at that time were pleased to have topical debates with no votes so that everyone who wanted to could get away, which meant that more power was put into the hands of the Executive. That is contrary to what the Liberals have said on the Floor of the House of Commons and, indeed, here. They have said, ““We don’t want the Executive to get more power””. Last week the Minister said what fantastic power we were giving to the Prime Minister by enabling him or her to call an election on a date of their choosing, when the polls looked good. The coalition comprises two parties that fought like cats and dogs in the House of Commons—I had to hold their jackets at times—because their policies were so different. However, the leaders of those parties said: ““We are getting together to sort out the financial problems of this nation; that’s why we are together, but here’s the wee deal—that we get a five-year Parliament””. There are people with more knowledge of political history than I but I put it to the Committee that Ted Heath might have had the power to go to the country that the Minister talks about, but it did not work for him. Ted Heath said: ““It’s me or the miners””, but the country did not re-elect him. He did not serve his full term. Therefore, the great power that he had did not work in his favour; nor did it work in Harold Wilson’s favour in 1970. I remember hearing as a young canvasser that Labour would win again, and the polls all said that. Harold Wilson was perceived as the winner, but during the 1970 election word came through that he would lose, and he did. The same happened with Jim Callaghan. Had Jim Callaghan gone to the country before the great winter of discontent, perhaps he would have won—who knows? The Prime Minister may have awesome power but it has been shown that that power does not always work in his favour. The noble and gallant Lord spoke about disgruntled Ministers. I suggest that there will be a stack of disgruntled former Ministers. I can hear them now saying, when they were appointed, ““Tony said I am the only one who can do this job””. Then they go on to Sky TV—the lovely thing about Sky TV is that if you cannot sleep in the middle of the night, you go on to Sky TV—and the same Minister says, ““What a wonderful Prime Minister we have””. I do not know whether it was reported that one Minister said: ““I would jump under a bus for the Prime Minister””. I would not jump under a bus for anybody. I do not know whether it was a moving bus or a stationary bus but it shows how much that Minister loved the Prime Minister. Then there is a reshuffle because the Prime Minister has a difficulty; he has to get fresh blood in because the Back-Benchers are saying, ““They’ve had their turn at being Ministers; we want to be Ministers now””. I do not want to mention names but it has been reported that the gentleman who wrote the book might get back into government. I say good luck and three cheers to him. However, there are too many Ministers on the Front Bench so somebody must fall off the end. The logic of that gentleman getting back into government is that someone else will lose their job and become a disgruntled former Minister. The lovely thing about that is that the same people, when they lose their jobs, do not say any more that the Prime Minister is a great person. They sidle up to you in the tea room and say, ““He’s a rotter. He’s a bounder””. That gave me an opportunity to say, ““But you were not saying that about him two years ago””. The media then make mischief because they have a pool of individuals who are willing to criticise the Government. That then leads me to consider the people who matter—the electorate. They turn on their televisions, as do the politicians, and they say, ““What is going on here? They are all fighting like cats and dogs””. They then think of the old saying in the Bible that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and they say to themselves, ““We elected these people to be unified. They promised us unity and now they are fighting with one another””. That will happen in the fifth year. For the sake of running the House properly, four years is far better than this fixed five years.