Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I apologise for speaking at this late hour but I made it clear in Committee that if anybody referred to Mr Asquith again, it would stimulate me into speaking. Although I was not here to hear the reference to him at the beginning of this afternoon's proceedings, it was alluded to later in the debate on Amendment 1. Therefore here I am, on my feet. Your Lordships’ House will recall the Sherlock Holmes case where the great detective pointed out to Dr Watson the significance of the dog not barking in the night-time. Those of your Lordships who were here to listen carefully to the powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, on Amendment 1 will have noticed that he omitted from his list of five-year Parliaments in the post-war era the period from 1945 to 1950. He thus omitted the great achievements of the Labour Government of the Earl Attlee of that period. In generosity, I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, realised that it required a five-year Parliament to produce the achievements of what I understand the Labour Party has always thought was the greatest Labour Government of them all. As to the reason he omitted it, I suggest that it was considered either that it would be sacrilege ever to run the risk of toppling the Attlee Government’s record from its plinth, or that Labour had given up hope of ever challenging the Attlee Government’s record and felt that Labour should conceal the dilemma I am describing by limiting the life of any future Labour Government to, at most, four years as a self-immolating, self-denying ordinance. The noble Lord, Lord Morgan—not to mention the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer—was prudent enough not to announce which of the cases I have adumbrated was correct and now we shall never know. Your Lordships’ House knows my tremendous admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. It is an index of my forgiveness of the fact that I am never going to know the answer as to why the Attlee Government was omitted from the analysis of Amendment 1 that I say to my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench that I think he has a question to answer from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.