Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Of course I shall withdraw it because we are in Committee and will not really be having any votes. I completely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said about the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly being completely different, and I particularly agree with what he said regarding the supply issue. They are both important but they are different sorts of institutions. I do not agree that the old rules do not work because there is now more of a three, four or five-party system in the Commons. That is completely wrong. I keep going back to 1924, but it was because there were three parties and no one had an overall majority that the Queen’s Speech was defeated in January 1924. In October 1924, when again there were three parties, a vote of no confidence was passed in the then Labour Government and Ramsay MacDonald went straight to the country without any difficulty at all, understanding immediately that that was the appropriate thing to do. With the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, this is not a comment on him but on the process. He struggles when he tries to explain the rationale for these provisions. He says, ““We want not to be too vague and we want to bring some certainty but we do not want to be too precise””. Those are not his exact words but that is what he said in his reply. I ask: why is it not okay to say ““once there is a vote of no confidence””? The noble and learned Lord should remember that the Bill deprives the Prime Minister of calling a general election unless there is a vote of no confidence or a two-thirds vote, which is a considerable restriction. The Government are trying to deliver the element of fixedness but their mistake is in saying that there has to be some complicated process thereafter. This debate simply reinforces the sense that it would be sufficient to have a general provision saying that, where there is a vote of no confidence in the Government, there may be a Dissolution. It would be viewed as a constitutional provision and would not be picked over in this legalistic way, which is the inevitable consequence of the coalition’s drafting of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. Amendment 41 withdrawn. Amendment 42 Moved by