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Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I had not planned to speak on this but, reflecting on what has been said, I am rather torn. I accept the logic of what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has said—I think that the argument he has advanced is impeccable—but I am reflecting on the value of the sessional cut-off, keeping it to a year, as has been advocated. It is quite right that the sessional cut-off is a discipline on the Government and it gives some leverage to the Opposition—capital ““O””, and sometimes small ““o””—because of the pressure. I am not sure that compression within one year as the length of the Session necessarily benefits Parliament, because legislation has to be got through in that time and it limits the two Houses in the amount of time they can devote to deliberation in Committee. In the Commons, there is a problem now with Public Bill Committees, because there is very little time between taking evidence and having then to consider the Bill in the normal way. I am just reflecting on the fact that, while I accept the logic of what the noble Lord has said, maybe we need to think a little more imaginatively about how long each Session actually lasts. In a five-year Parliament, maybe we should think about a three or four-Session Parliament. There needs to be some discipline, but one has to try to get the balance on that right. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, because he has prompted me to think about that. We perhaps ought to reflect a little more seriously about it; there is a problem with the nature of rushed legislation of this sort, when perhaps we should be sitting back and thinking a little more constructively about how we want our Parliament to be run to the benefit of Parliament. As I say, there is that balance to be met between giving leverage to the Opposition and benefiting Parliament so that it has proper time to thoroughly scrutinise what the Government are bringing forward.