Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

—and for recovering ground that I may have lost yesterday.

Somewhat to my surprise, I find myself a little more distant than I usually am from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and it is on her speech that I should like to concentrate. I have not yet fully digested the speech of my noble friend Lord Cormack but I am certainly not distancing myself from it until I have had a chance to think about what he said.

My comments, which I hope the Front Bench will not find unhelpful, are based on three points. First, the noble Baroness asked why you should need 14 days rather than five. I accept that either figure is a bit arbitrary but, given some of the things that have happened since—actually, my Front Bench may not welcome this—it might have been worth taking more than five days to complete the coalition agreement. Am I allowed to say that?

Secondly, the British electorate may like quick, seamless, one-day change, with the pantechnicons arriving at the back, or successively at the front, but I think they are going to have to get used to something else. When I started in the Conservative research department in 1960, we carried out what was called “cohort polling” —it was very expensive and we probably could not do it now—whereby we went back to the same people at intervals. It has been clear for 50 years that the old-style “I am red”, “I am blue” and “I am yellow” syndrome is breaking down. We saw the final conclusion of that at the last election. I do not boast about this, but people did not want anyone to win; they wanted to make us work together. I do not say that will always happen, but it will happen more frequently and the British public will have to get used to it.

My last point on the noble Baroness’s speech—I hope she does not think that I am being too unfriendly—is that the markets will have to get used to it as well, just as they get used to it in Germany. In most European countries, an election is followed by a prolonged period of negotiation—at the worst, horse-trading—before a Government emerge. In many cases it takes far longer than 14 days. I do not see them collapsing in a heap as a result.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I hate to interrupt because I agree with so much of what my noble friend has said. He speaks of other countries where 14 days has been exceeded; I believe Belgium is into its 11th month, is it not?

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

That may be a bit excessive, but then Belgium has some rather unique problems—which, so far, have not happened here—in terms of racial, linguistic and ethnic division. I take my noble friend’s point and I hope that he will take mine that most European countries do not expect to have the pantechnicons arriving on election day or the day afterwards. They have got used to it; why cannot we?