One thing on which I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, who introduced the debate in a very reasonable fashion, is that we may in future have more coalition Governments than some of us would like. If we look at the pattern of politics, we can clearly see that more people are willing to vote for a range of parties, which in itself brings challenges for the major political parties. It may well be that fixed-term Parliaments are used as a device when other coalitions are formed in future.
I hope that there will be a clear overall majority for the Conservative party when there is an election—or that there is a clear majority among the electorate—but if there is no such majority and, to return to my earlier point, someone has to run the economy, interest rates need to be maintained, restrictions on public expenditure are still needed and tough decisions have to be made, coalitions will sometimes be the best vehicle.
I have always taken a very pragmatic view of the British constitution. It has shown that it can be amended, changed and challenged by what is thrown at it. The remarkable thing about 2010 was that there was an indecisive general election but a strong Government were formed to deal with the very difficult issues we faced. Those issues will still need to be dealt with in next Parliament.
I simply point out that it would be better to have flexibility in the system. At some stage, we will find ourselves in the situation where a general election is the solution to dealing with the problems. Given some of the current polls, with both major parties on percentage shares in the 30s, one possible result would be for each to have between 260 and 280 seats and for neither to be able to form a coalition with any other party, and that would lead us into grand coalition territory. We had that in February 1974, when the Conservatives conspired to allow the Labour party to govern until there was another general election. It would be unusual but not impossible to have a situation in which no Government could be sustained. In such a case, rather than having some absurd coalition with both major parties getting together but agreeing on nothing, it would be sensible
for the electorate at some point to get the chance to decide which party or coalition of parties they wished to run the country.
The coalition has not done a bad job. It was necessary, and it has probably helped the British economy. Having fixed-term Parliaments was one part of the deal. That was perfectly respectable politics, because there was a need to reassure the junior partner in the coalition. However, being conservative constitutionally, I rather hope that we can go back to the previous system. If we do, it will be the decision of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), if he is the Prime Minister after the next election, to decide about the following election. If he then made the wrong decision, he would have to pay the consequences for that.
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