This is an important debate and I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) opened it. The subject needs to be aired by this House. I do not necessarily see the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 as the work of the forces of evil or, indeed, the Liberal Democrats. On the other hand, the alternative of the previous system is not necessarily a panacea.
In practical terms, if the coalition had fallen apart at some point, the Prime Minister would probably have come to the House and proposed a Dissolution, and I would have been extremely surprised if the Leader of the Opposition had not agreed with the proposition of having a general election to sort out the situation. The need for a two-thirds majority principally means that the Conservative party and the Labour party could conspire to have a Dissolution on a date on which they both agree. Essentially, it does not prevent a general election from taking place; it just means that there would have to be a degree of consultation between both major parties.
I do not think that fixed-term Parliaments are necessarily a good thing, for some of the reasons that have already been discussed. I think there comes a time—four years is probably long enough—when a Government ought to try to get a new mandate from the electorate. If we look back at history, we will see that at one point we had seven-year Parliaments and then the term was reduced to five years. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to general elections. We missed a general election in 1940, for the very understandable reason that we were doing other things at the time. That was quite reasonable and one must remember that that Parliament ran all the way to 1945.
Whenever the United Kingdom has had early general elections—I think we ought to focus on early general elections, rather than those that have taken place towards the end of a term after four, four and a half, or five years—it was usually because the electorate gave an indecisive result and, for the sake of good government, the political parties wanted the electorate to reconsider through another general election. At the end of the day, apart from holding the Government to account, Parliament is about ensuring that there is a Government, who have to deliver the health service, education and pensions. Of course, the 2010 Government had to manage the British economy, which has to be managed in a particular way. Those are very important issues.
Governments have gone early on two occasions in my lifetime. The Wilson Government of February 1974 went and got a small majority that October, and the 1964 Labour Government were re-elected in 1966, having initially got a very small majority.