Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I and, I am sure, my noble friends are very grateful for the generous things which have been said about this amendment. They have been said so well that I need speak only briefly, but I hope that brevity will not disguise from your Lordships the constitutional importance of the principle which underlies the amendment. I do not question or doubt for a moment the sincerity of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and his colleagues who believe in a fixed-term Parliament. I do not agree with them, largely for the reasons that were so well put by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, because there are circumstances in which it is in the national interest for a Prime Minister to seek an early general election and a new mandate. The circumstances which the noble Lord described bear that out. I simply do not think that it is true that all Prime Ministers who go for an early election do so for their party advantage. There are very often national circumstances, as there certainly were in my experience, which make that desirable. Perhaps I may state some propositions on which I think we can all agree. The first is that to go from flexible-term Parliaments to an arrangement for fixed-term Parliaments is a constitutional change. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, said, it is a major constitutional change; arguably, it is more important than the change to the alternative vote system on which the country had a referendum. Secondly, I think that it is unarguable that the Government do not have a mandate for this proposition. It was in the coalition agreement, but it was not in the Conservative Party manifesto and it is not something on which the public voted at the last general election. Thirdly, as was said, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. It has been introduced very quickly; I think that one could say that aspects of it were not properly thought out. That is not the way that a major constitutional change of this sort ought to be introduced. As has been said, the Government have a perfect right to commit themselves to a fixed term for the present Parliament, provided that they continue to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others have said, it is not necessary to have legislation for that purpose, but if the Government want such legislation, to bind themselves with hoops of iron, I regard that as their business; I do not challenge it. What I do challenge is their right by making a permanent constitutional change to bind future Parliaments. Certainly, they do not have the right to make a permanent change to our constitution to meet the convenience of a temporary coalition. As has been said, this amendment seeks to deal with this situation in a reasonable way. It does not defeat the Bill. It allows it to apply to the present Parliament, which is the Government’s wish. It allows the legislation to remain on the statute book in case a future Government or coalition wish to bind themselves similarly. However, while giving a future Parliament that choice, it avoids a permanent change to our constitution. I urge noble Lords in all parts of the House, whether they agree with a fixed-term Parliament or not, to uphold the principle that we do not make permanent changes to our constitution without more consideration than has been given in this instance and that we do allow future Parliaments to apply this legislation to themselves if they choose it.