(13 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberA balance has to be struck and I would strike it at five years.
On the previous day in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, urged a referendum on the question of the day of the week that polling should take place. In his speech today, he did not urge a referendum on going to a four-year term, which is a greater constitutional change than a change in the day of the week for voting.
My Lords, it is precisely the same issue. This is about whether the election should be every four years or five years—I am happy to accept that there may be failings in the wording of the amendment—but the principle is exactly the same: it is to enable the electorate to choose between whether the term of a Parliament should be five years or four years.
I take it that, if the amendment is passed, the noble Lord would also want a referendum on the question of whether a fixed-term Parliament should be for four or five years.
Thank you. That makes my point. It has been argued that the merit of a four-year term is that it gives the electorate more ability to hold the Government to account because they can do so more frequently. People like us and experts on government argue about what is good for the people and what the people want. If this was put to a referendum, I doubt whether there would be popular support for four-year rather than five-year terms. Elections are not very popular in this country; people do not like having their television dominated by politics for five or six weeks at a time. One of the arguments in favour of a four-year term is that we are giving the public what we think they ought to want, but I doubt they want it themselves.