Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I support what my noble friend Lord McAvoy said; I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Grocott; and I support the approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. It is worrying when everyone who knows anything about this says—and I do not include myself; I refer to three distinguished ex-Members of the other place—that the effect of there being no control over the Government on how long a Session lasts means that they can play fast and loose with however long it takes them to get the legislation that they want through Parliament. That weakens the power of Parliament. A lot of the constitutional rhetoric of this Government was on strengthening the power of Parliament. I wish to ask a specific question, because it would appear that the Government understood this position on 25 May 2010, when the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons said in relation to the Bill: "““There is a strong case for pre-legislative scrutiny, but I do not want to extend the consideration of this legislation into the following Session, because that would not be appropriate””.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/4/10; col. 152.]" He understood the importance of Sessions. He said that on 25 May 2010. Happily for him, on 13 September 2010, the Session was then extended until May 2012, thereby getting rid of the one problem that stood in the way of pre-legislative scrutiny. Can the noble and learned Lord specifically answer as to why the Deputy Leader of the House broke that promise? ““Promise”” may be overstating it. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord should characterise what the Deputy Leader meant. Was it wild musing as to what might happen? Why did he not go ahead with what he had said?