Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

That is not an analogy I would make with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. When this House made decisions about setting up those bodies, we did not think it appropriate to give them the power to pick and choose their term of office. We set it out in the legislation that set the bodies up. I am curious to know what the supporters of the Lords amendment think would happen if the next Parliament decided that it did not want a fixed term. It is not very clear from the amendments, how exactly the mechanisms would work. I shall take Members through the Lords amendments shortly and explain how I think they would work. It has been suggested that a sunset clause would ensure that the issue of fixed-term Parliaments and the merits of this particular Bill would be subject to post-legislative scrutiny. That is not necessary, however. This legislation has already been scrutinised by four Select Committees: the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the Lords Constitution Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I am sure that any one of those Select Committees or another Select Committee will subject the Bill to some form of post-legislative scrutiny, which is something that the Government would welcome. I do not think that these sunset clauses, however, would lead to that type of sensible scrutiny. I said that I would look at the effect of the Lords amendments on the working of the Bill. Lords amendment 9 talks about a resolution having to be"““approved by each House of Parliament””." That is fairly straightforward. The most unclear provisions relate to section 7(4), stating that a number of parts of the Bill will have effect"““only until the first meeting of the… Parliament””," which would then decide whether to bring those provisions in. The provisions on early elections and confidence votes would not be clear and it would not be clear how Parliament would be dissolved. The schedule, which has a number of consequential amendments, would also not be in force. The schedule, which repeals the Septennial Act and a whole load of other provisions, would effectively cease to be in force and, presumably, all the repeals and amendments would be unrepealed and unamended. We would then end up with a very complicated constitutional proposition.