Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Debate between Robert Syms and Edward Leigh

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I take back that cheap shot against Tony Blair—it was perhaps unnecessary—and I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Over the centuries, we have established a pretty good system. I think we are the only country in Europe never to have been a police state or had a police state imposed on it. We should be pretty proud of our slow constitutional growth.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

When President Nixon and Spiro Agnew resigned, the United States ended up with a President and Vice-President who had been elected by Congress and not by a mandate of the people. It is therefore possible to have a change of power without an election there, which would not happen here.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Exactly; that is a very fair point.

Our own beloved Mark Darcy, a BBC journalist who is really an ornament of the constitution, put it very well when he said that there was a danger under the Act of Parliaments

“oscillating between hyperactivity and torpor” .

We appear to be at the torpid end of this Parliament.

I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I regret that you cannot join us and make a speech. We recollect your coruscating arguments during the passage of the Bill, but we accept that you are of course now completely neutral.

I just think that five years is far too long. We have experienced a very front-loaded Parliament. The best evidence of that has been the recent explosion in the number of Back-Bench debates, compared with the number in the early part of the Parliament. I welcome Back-Bench debates, but they are taking place not through the kindness of the Government but because there is no majority in the House to do anything that would make a real difference. In my experience, the very best Conservative and Labour Parliaments have been four-year Parliaments, and the very worst have lasted for five years—in particular, our 1992 Parliament and Labour’s 2005 Parliament. Towards the end, five-year Parliaments get weaker and weaker.