I apologise for interrupting my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith but he is obviously unaware that there is evidence as to how the five years came in. Mr David Laws’ book states that Andrew Stunnell pointed out that, "““trust and confidence was very important to us, and that we wouldn’t want to find the PM calling an election at a time that did not suit us. ‘That works both ways!’ said William Hague. We mentioned that our policy””—"
this is the Liberal Democrats— "““was for four-year, fixed-term parliaments. George Osborne made the point that five-year parliaments were better, as they allowed governments to get into implementing their plans … We made no objection to this, and Britain was on its way to five-year, fixed-term parliaments for the first time in its history””."
I thought my noble and learned friend would like to know what the evidence was.
Fixed-term Parliaments Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 10 May 2011.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
727 c787 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-12-15 16:15:25 +0000
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_740663
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_740663
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_740663