Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, it has been a good and a very important debate. If what the noble and learned Lord says is right about trying to engage the public more in politics and if the Deputy Prime Minister is right when he says, describing the suite of Bills, that, "““it is an unambiguous judgment on our part that reducing the power of the executive, seeking to boost the power of the legislature, making the legislatures more accountable to people ... collectively introduces the mechanisms by which people can exercise greater control over politicians””," surely the minimum that this Government should do is to respond to Parliament’s independent view about these issues, not put on a party-political basis. Both Select Committees, which contain a majority of people from the coalition, said that five years was wrong and that four years was right. If this Government are going to demonstrate their sincerity about new politics, should it not abandon simply doing things on the basis of what their own whipped majority wants and listen to what Parliament says? Parliament has said on an independent basis that four years and not five years is right. If the Government do not listen to that, I have to say that it puts in doubt their repeated statement, in particular through their Deputy Prime Minister, that they want to give more power to the legislature. I shall not repeat the arguments in support of four years. For my own part, the independent evidence supports it very strongly. The only point that I shall refer to is the one made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, that you could have five years for this Parliament and four for the next. Myself and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, are in agreement on the principled position in relation to that. If it is to be four or five years for the future, it should be the same for this Parliament, because this Bill introduces fetters and difficulties in having an election before the end. So I agree with the Government when they say that it should be the same now as for the future. For all the reasons given, in my respectful submission the right answer is four years. Sadly, I shall not accept the invitation of the noble and learned Lord, tempting as it is. I wish to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 1 Contents 209; Not-Contents 257. Amendment 1 disagreed. Moved by