Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I note the hon. Gentleman’s comments from a sedentary position, and he is often right about these matters. I am quite certain that the process had absolutely nothing whatever to do with horse trading about a deal.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Of course not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

If I may say so, the “and” is disjunctive, not conjunctive—and I know that because I drafted that piece of the manifesto.

I simply do not understand why—and we have heard no serious explanation as to why—the Government are bolting it. This morning, the Leader of the House gave us a further example when he announced a decision—not a proposal; it had been decided, and that was the word he used—that this Session should last for two years. He then tried to excuse that, having run into something of a squall in the House, by saying—we can check this against the record—that it was a “proposition” that could be further considered in this Bill. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will examine closely what the Leader of the House said about commitments for debate on that aspect of a consequence of this Bill.

[Robert Flello]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that not having an opportunity in Committee to discuss that matter should also be a potential trigger for voting against the Bill on Third Reading?

[Mr Straw]

Yes, I accept that. It will not be a pre-emptive decision for me to take, but one that will be taken in the usual way by the shadow Cabinet as a whole and the parliamentary party.

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) will make his own point about this next matter when he addresses the House. He chairs the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, which is an all-party Committee with, I believe, a Conservative majority. It has been very clear about what he has described as:

“The severe lack of time which the Committee has had to scrutinise this…Bill”.

He continued by saying that this

“is not only frustrating but very disappointing.”