Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I do not share the hon. Gentleman's optimism about the coalition holding together successfully for the full five years. I think that he is accepting that, in effect, we now have, permanently, a five-year Scottish Parliament and a five-year Welsh Assembly, but I am not sure whether legislation will be brought forward to make that clear in the next Parliament. That is a huge change in constitutional convention and I think he was involved in that. Certainly, his party played a significant role and there was cross-party consensus on it. One of the key issues was having a four-year Scottish Parliament. I would very much hope that if the Committee were set up, it would have a remit that covered not just the impact on the workings of both Houses, but the impact on devolved Administrations and on local authority elections in the rest of the United Kingdom. It is disappointing that we have seen no such indication from the Deputy Prime Minister about what the Committee's remit would be. It is also disappointing to note that there is no length of time attached to when the Committee is expected to report by. If I were cynical and thought that the Deputy Prime Minister could not be trusted and might make a pledge that he would then break, I might think this issue would then be kicked into the proverbial long grass for, perhaps, the full five-year period. I was very surprised that although the Minister gave a reasonably satisfactory assurance about the starting date of the Committee, a closing date for its work has not been provided. I look forward to hearing his response in a few minutes, when I very much hope he will deal with that point. We also heard from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) that this is a wrecking measure. I have been in the House for only 15 months but it strikes me that every time the Deputy Prime Minister puts forward something that his coalition partners are not keen on, some measures are described as wrecking measures. I seem to recall that exactly the same argument was used about changing the date of the referendum on the alternative vote. It was said that moving the date back six months would wreck the whole premise, but I note that that argument was not put forward this week by the Liberal Democrats about shifting the date of the police elections—somehow that is not a wrecking measure, but I cannot think why. It is very disappointing that the debate was not better advertised, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned, possibly because the Patronage Secretary was hoping that many of his more principled colleagues would make other arrangements for this afternoon and would not be around to give the measures the due diligence they could do with. I would be grateful if the Minister would outline why we were not notified until 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon that this important debate was going to take place. The last issue that I want to address is the Minister's argument that it would take nine years to start this process. I do not see why he requires, effectively, two complete Sessions of five-year fixed terms to do this. His argument about the upper House is quite revealing and I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members in his party will take great comfort from the fact that he is now saying that there will not be an elected upper House and that we will rightly have a fully appointed House of Lords, as we have at the moment. I am sure that is part of the deal that was cooked up over dinner last night. I understand that the Minister was the subject of some roasting last night at the dinner and it is good to see his hands fully today. I understand that there was some concern among parliamentary colleagues that he would have to keep his hands in sight at all times. Without further ado, I will sit down so that he can respond.