Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation after so many distinguished noble Lords. The first thing I want to do is to thank, like so many other noble Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness for his care, consideration and courtesy in dealing with various issues that I have raised with him. I have been able to support the Bill because of the two great principles of certainty and stability which it enshrines, but there is a third leg of that constitutional stool, which is simplicity, as my noble friend Lord Cormack, pointed out earlier. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, explained, there is a problem with the 14-day cooling-off period. It is in danger of failing those three fundamental principles. Let me briefly take the example of 1977-79, which some of us remember so well. Those years showed the best and worst of our current system. The best was that it allowed sufficient flexibility for the formation of the Lib-Lab pact—before my noble friends begin to swoon in surprise, I emphasise that I do not hold the Lib-Lab pact as the best example of government, or even a good example of government, merely a flexible example. How flexible our current system was became even clearer after that when the Liberals withdrew and everyone from Bill Brewer to Uncle Tom Cobbleigh got in on the act. That was the worst of the current system. Deals were done—not just with the Liberal Party, but with Ulster Unionists, Scottish nationalists, Welsh nationalists and even Irish republicans. Goodness’ knows what would have happened if UKIP had been present there. Offers and inducements were made, from extra parliamentary seats to expensive pipelines to promises on devolution—even, I understand, to the occasional odd bottle of Scotch. The only reason why some of us can smile about it is because it was so very long ago. The country was rescued from that misery by a vote of no confidence. Every man and woman in the other place that night understood precisely what that vote entailed. If the Government lost, they would fall. The stakes were extraordinarily high: so high that some Members clambered from their sick beds to get into ambulances and make that long haul to New Palace Yard—simply in order to be nodded through. A few, I believe, put their lives on the line simply in order to do that duty. How could we countenance a system which, after such an effort and such a sacrifice, responded by saying, ““Thank you, but now you have another 14 days to cool off, to change your mind””? Fourteen days of dodgy deals, 14 days of pipelines and parliamentary fixes, 14 days to deny the electorate their right to decide—and every bit of it enshrined in law. Far from the Prime Minister giving up his powers to Parliament—