Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords opposite will have an opportunity to explain their points. Perhaps I may briefly explain the third reason for my having decided that five years is better than four years. It is again a question of consistency. We agreed relatively recently and after lengthy debate—the longest that we have had in the time that I have been here—on the system for parliamentary boundary reviews. It has been established that there will be five-year reviews of constituency boundaries. It would be madness to say that one should redraw the constituency boundaries every five years but then not to have general elections every five years. To have a general election every four years but to redraw the boundaries every fifth year would put the two processes completely and quite unfairly out of sync. On that basis, I decided that five years rather than four was more logical and more democratic.