Liberal Democrats table Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill in House of Commons

3.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 8th Oct 2007

Liberal Democrats today tabled a Bill in the House of Commons to introduce fixed parliamentary terms of four years. The Bill would fix the date of the next general election (as 7 May 2009) and all subsequent general elections (four yearly intervals, on the first Thursday in May), forbid the dissolution of Parliament at times between those dates and allow the House of Commons to change the day of the week on which general elections are held. The Bill has been tabled by Liberal Democrat Shadow Solicitor General, David Howarth MP.

David Howarth MP said "We have argued for a long time that Parliament should be on the basis of fixed terms like most other modern democratic countries. It's quite wrong that the Prime Minister of the day should be able to fiddle the dates of the election for short term political advantage. Events over the last few days have shown how damaging it is to the political system for the Prime Minister to have that discretion. Gordon Brown has been playing games with the electorate in a system that is all too open to abuse."