Lord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cormack's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, we have plenty of time. When two noble Lords stand up, perhaps one of them could be courteous to the other and decide to give way.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Tyler. As one who fought all the elections to which my noble friend the Minister referred, will he accept that those of us with that sort of experience have evaluated? We do not need to wait until 2020. This is a disservice to the constitution and the sooner it is consigned to the legislative rubbish tip the better.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Lord demonstrates that his conservatism on constitutional matters is as deep as that of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. It was in the Labour Party’s manifesto for the last election that it would legislate on a fixed-term Parliament—as indeed in others. This transfer of, what was after all, executive power to Parliament was, one would have thought, an extension of our democratic system and a limit on prime ministerial power.