I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
The Bill passed through the other place, where it was carefully scrutinised and amended in only one respect: to seek to retain a role for this honourable House in respect of Dissolution. The Lords amendment provided that the Prime Minister could request the sovereign exercise—the revived prerogative powers to dissolve and call Parliament—only when this House agreed the motion
“that this present Parliament will be dissolved.”
That would create an untested, hybrid system by imposing statutory arrangements on top of the prerogative system that existed prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Such statutory constraints would undermine the flexibility that for generations characterised the pre-2011 arrangements that the Government want to reinstate. With respect, the Government therefore firmly disagree with the Lords amendment.
In fact, the Government and the Opposition both committed—in their manifestos, no less—to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The Lords amendment would repeal that Act only to retain one of its fundamental flaws. That is not our wish or our intention and it does not meet the commitment that we made to the electorate.