Fixed-term Parliaments Bill — Consideration of Commons Reason

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:45 pm on 18 July 2011.

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Photo of Lord Butler of Brockwell Lord Butler of Brockwell Crossbench 4:45, 18 July 2011

My Lords, I agree that this has been a very good debate. I do not need to go over the arguments again except perhaps to assure the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that, like Mark Twain's death, reports of the advantage to a Prime Minister of being able to decide when to call an election in the last year are greatly exaggerated. Certainly such reports did not prevent the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, from packing her bags on the morning of a general election in preparation for the election not going the way she expected.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who spoke about the report from your Lordships' Select Committee on the Constitution. The Minister quoted one of its conclusions in his last remarks, but I would like to quote the two main conclusions. The Minister said that the Select Committee on the constitution in another place endorsed the proposal, but I shall quote what your Lordships' committee said. If I may say so, your Lordships' committee contains distinguished constitutional lawyers from all parties, who trump those who are members of the constitution committee in another place. They said:

"We take the view that the origins and contents of this Bill owe more to short-term considerations than to a mature assessment of enduring constitutional principles or sustained public demand".

The committee continued by saying that,

"the balance of the evidence we heard does not convince most of us that a strong enough case has yet been made for overturning an established constitutional practice and moving to fixed-term Parliaments".

There could hardly be two more damaging sentences.

Our national constitution is too important to be tinkered with as a bargaining chip in the negotiations of a temporary coalition. The British people have decisively prevented that from happening to the voting system for the House of Commons. They are not to be given a chance to express a view on this constitutional change, so it falls to your Lordships to insist that the Government and the House of Commons refrain from making a permanent change and give future Parliaments and Governments the opportunity to make these decisions for themselves. I would like to seek the opinion of the House.