Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Jack Straw and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is being slightly disingenuous. Is not the most obvious reason why the Bill is here, before us, that the coalition partners are worried that the other one will welsh out?

[Mr Straw]

Of course. I was going to come on to that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for leading me down that path. There is no reason to rush through legislation for a fixed-term Parliament, because, even if we do not have the Bill, there is no prospect of a general election being called, in almost any circumstances, within the next three years.

The Liberal Democrat and Labour parties were committed by their manifestos to the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, but the Conservatives’ proposal ran directly counter to that, because it stated that a general election should be called within six months of any change of Prime Minister, meaning that, if the Prime Minister had suddenly passed away or something else had happened to him and he was no longer in office, we could have had a general election within a twelvemonth.

We know, however, that the structure of the Bill and the rush derive not from the pursuit of a sensible idea for which there is all-party support, but from narrow, partisan reasons related to the internal chemistry that both parties feared and, I think, still fear could be explosive in difficult circumstances.