---

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I will come on to why I think five years is an inappropriate length of time. However, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's comments. I will admit lots of things in this speech, but I will not admit what he has just told me to admit. My argument is essentially that four years is a better term for a fixed Parliament than five years. A five-year legislative provision for a maximum length of a Parliament has served us not too badly and may well be okay, not least because it has meant in practical terms that Parliaments have tended to be more like four years, precisely as Asquith intended in 1911. But a fixed five-year term is overlong, and the main reason why we have that is because the Government want to continue until May 2015, which is an inappropriate use of constitutional reform. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole said that he was absolutely certain that there could not have been any underhand skulduggery. I think he was using irony, if not sarcasm, and irony does not always translate perfectly into Hansard. His Dog and Duck test is right. The vast majority of voters are not obsessed with the length of a Parliament, but they do know when a Parliament has had its day, and for the most part, by the time we get to four years in this country, certainly since the second world war, most electorates have started to say, ““You know what, it's time we had a general election.””