Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Dobbs

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

We are rather going off the subject of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. Briefly, I remind the noble Baroness that her party's manifesto promised a referendum on AV but no other subject. The Conservative Party promised as part of the coalition negotiations to have a referendum on AV but on no other subject. The Liberal Democrats won only 57 out of 650 seats and were therefore not in a position to insist on what we really wanted, which was a referendum on proportional representation.

[Lord Dobbs]

I have listened to this debate and the previous one with fascination. We have gone today from Herbert Asquith in 1911 to Mr Chris Huhne and Mr David Laws—and other notorious parliamentary double acts. We have been from the dog to the duck and all the way to Battersea Dogs Home. We have heard that this is a matter of high principle. Perhaps that is right. I can just imagine the scene when Mr Gordon Brown in 2007 was urged to go for an early election. Did he say, “No, Miliband. Get behind me with your temptation. It has been only two years since the last election and I must soldier on to the end as a matter of principle?”. It might have been like that, but I thought that it was my task in my other life to ask for the suspension of disbelief. Certainly it was not like that with John Major in 1996. The question then was simple; can we win in four? “No? Okay, we’ll try five”. Of course, I was not with Jim Callaghan in 1978 or Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, but I suspect that the conversations in No. 10 were along much the same lines.