I am very grateful to the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for her intervention. Perhaps I might revert to where I started.
I rise very briefly to support the amendment to which I was very happy to put my name, which was so clearly advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. As he said, its only purpose is to make it more difficult—impossible, I would like to think—for a Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament for an improper purpose: namely, to prevent the House of Commons from challenging, and perhaps overriding, the decisions of Ministers with regard to Brexit. The fact that in a parliamentary democracy we have to contemplate such a possibility is truly lamentable, especially when the party in office is the Conservative Party, which I have supported in and out of Parliament for 40 years, and my family has for much longer. But that is where Brexit and the personality of Mr Johnson have brought us.
Most Members of this House, not least those of us who have served in the House of Commons, know that such an action would subvert the foundations of parliamentary government. As the noble Lord reminded us, it would also involve the Monarchy in an intensely partisan controversy. We must take every proper and available step to frustrate that possibility. This amendment addresses that purpose, and it is in that spirit, and for that reason, that I commend it to your Lordships’ Committee.