I am delighted to have the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate. I am sorry that the Minister
for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), has just left the Chamber. I would just place on record—and I hope she will see it at some point on her return—that for me, as for so many others in this debate, it is a matter of genuine delight and joy to see her back in the House. Contrary to what we might read in some parts of the press, a lot of Members of Parliament are held in respect, but the hon. Lady is someone who is held not just in respect but in affection. The manner in which she has tackled her illness has been an inspiration to many, and we are delighted to see her back.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will indulge me for a minute or two while I pick over some of the history of this matter and of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I am not quite the last man standing from that period, but I am one of the last few. It is often said that history is written by the victors. Well, not even my sense of hyperbole would allow me to describe the Liberal Democrats as the victors in that episode in our political history, but I think it is important that we put a few matters on record.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in opening the debate, said that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was a “child of its time”. I openly accept that, at the start of the quite remarkable political adventure that was the coalition Government, the necessary trust that people might have had in a single-party Government was not there and, yes, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was a necessary safeguard for both parties to ensure that the Government would last the whole term. Remember what it was like at the start of that Government. All the commentators and all the clever people said, “This won’t last a month” and then, “It’ll not last two months”. They said that that Government would not last three months, then six months and then that they would not last a year. And then, eventually, it was accepted that that Government were going to last the whole term, as indeed they did.
The coalition Government did a lot of things that were very necessary in the interests of economic rebuilding after the crash of 2008, and it was necessary that we had five years of stability to be able to take those decisions.