Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I have listened to this debate and the previous one with fascination. We have gone today from Herbert Asquith in 1911 to Mr Chris Huhne and Mr David Laws—and other notorious parliamentary double acts. We have been from the dog to the duck and all the way to Battersea Dogs Home. We have heard that this is a matter of high principle. Perhaps that is right. I can just imagine the scene when Mr Gordon Brown in 2007 was urged to go for an early election. Did he say, ““No, Miliband. Get behind me with your temptation. It has been only two years since the last election and I must soldier on to the end as a matter of principle?””. It might have been like that, but I thought that it was my task in my other life to ask for the suspension of disbelief. Certainly it was not like that with John Major in 1996. The question then was simple; can we win in four? ““No? Okay, we’ll try five””. Of course, I was not with Jim Callaghan in 1978 or Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, but I suspect that the conversations in No. 10 were along much the same lines. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, talked earlier of the possibilities for abuse by Prime Ministers that might be brought in by the Bill. Perhaps I have a surprise for him; it is under the present system that Prime Ministers, when they have decided on election timing, have rarely been known to touch the fair brow of Principle, let alone grab her by the waist. Rather, getting Prime Ministers to give up office is rather like asking a squirrel to give up his nuts. The Bill gives us stability and certainty. They are very powerful principles. This is a rare example of a Prime Minister giving up powers: no longer able to manipulate the electoral system for his own personal benefit. No other Prime Minister has had the courage to do that. Yet the new system is not as fixed and rigid as the title of the Bill suggests. There are safety valves. Every one of what we might call the early elections of the past 75 years—in 1951, 1966, and two in 1974—could have taken place under the provisions of the Bill. The Bill does not mean five years inflexibly, unnaturally and no matter what. What are the arguments for four or five years, which is essentially what we are arguing about here? The arguments that I have heard for four years have been desperately thin. All sorts of statistical averages have been offered to us, but that is all that they are: statistical averages. There is nothing natural in the figure of four, apart from the natural inclination of Prime Ministers not to get unnaturally caught out by events or to run out of options. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord wants his party to meet the electorate sooner rather than later. Perhaps he is being more romantic than ruthless or calculating, but that does not make it right. Of course, the fifth years of previous Governments have been pretty terrible under the present system, but that is precisely what the Bill, with its certainty, is trying to put behind us. Four years or five years? There is no magic in either figure. Either way, the world will not crumble, nor democracy disappear down an abyss. Let us put aside the pretence that this is a matter of principle; it is a matter of practicalities. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Wills, talk about accountability to the people and about what the people want. That is what we should be worried about. However, people never complained when Mrs Thatcher or Mr Blair chose four years rather than five because they thought that they might win. Neither did they complain when John Major, Gordon Brown and Alec Douglas-Home chose five rather than four years on the basis that they might not win after four. People seem to be happy, in this instance at least, to leave decisions to the politicians. Should it be four or five? Noble Lords must forgive me if I am not entirely swayed by the argument that four is right simply because it was in the Lib Dem manifesto of an earlier era, and least of all because Mr Chris Huhne recommended it. I am inclined to five rather than four because it is the present system; we have a five-year term, so why change? If there is to be change from five to four, there must be a real and compelling reason rather than just a recitation of statistical averages. I also think that five rather than four will have advantages because we live in an increasingly short-term world of Twitter, Facebook and rushing to judgment. Five years might give us in this country the advantage of being able to lay foundations that might be properly assessed and will have a chance to endure. Of course, a five-year term encourages those vital twin pillars of success: stability and certainty. We have had much discussion on the need for more pre-legislative scrutiny on matters such as this, and that is a point that I respond to—but that is not the issue at this point. The issue is simply four or five, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with five.