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Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment, primarily because it will give the Government a chance to reconsider a key part of the Bill. The case for a fixed term of four years is not beyond argument, although my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer and many other noble Lords have made a good case for it being so. However, I agree with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, said at Second Reading: whether a term should be of four or five years is in the end ““a question of judgment””. That judgment should be informed by principle. I have struggled hard to find any principle advanced by the Government in favour of the Bill. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, at Second Reading seemed to base the argument primarily on precedent—on what had happened in our recent history, in several countries in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and so on. However, there is a principled argument for the Government’s position. It was put forward, for example, from the Cross Benches, by the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Butler, from all their experience of serving the state over many years. It is an argument rooted in the importance of stability for the governance of this country. This is not a negligible argument, but it comes up against the argument that accountability should be paramount. That is a judgment that I support. More importantly, it is a judgment that almost all noble Lords who have so far spoken in these debates have favoured. It is overwhelmingly, as we have heard, the view of all the experts who have given evidence to both Houses of Parliament. The search for an accommodation between the principles of accountability and stability is fundamental to the constitutional arrangements of all modern democracies. The question that still has not been adequately addressed in all the parliamentary scrutiny of this legislation is: who should make the decision about how best to make that accommodation? Today we have heard the case for greater consultation. Even if the Government did not take the decision in favour of five years quite as casually and self-interestedly as the account given by Mr David Laws MP suggests, it is still a fact that there has been no public consultation on this fundamental issue. This legislation seeks to determine the shape of future Parliaments, yet those most affected by it—the voters of this country—have not yet been asked what they think about the judgment that the Government have made. They should be asked. We have heard a great deal about the views of academic experts and politicians; what about the people we all serve? I am not in favour of referendums in general. I am certainly not in favour of a referendum on this point. However, I am in favour of the Government embarking on one of the many forms of public engagement that already exist—exercises in deliberative democracy and so on. They are available to the Government, who should now take advantage of them. Listening to all the rhetoric of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, you would think they believed in the greater engagement of the public in policy formation between elections. Here is an opportunity for them to put some substance into all this airy rhetoric. If your Lordships support this amendment, I fear it will not change the Government’s mind on how long a term should be. This Government have shown very little inclination to listen to your Lordships’ House on all their measures of constitutional reform. However, the amendment will at least provide an opportunity for taking a pause. My noble friend Lord Grocott made this case persuasively at the start of this debate. If the Government can take a pause to consult widely on measures such as NHS reform—profoundly important as they are—surely they can do the same with this important measure of constitutional reform. I hope that your Lordships will give the Government an opportunity to do so.