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Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My hon. Friend makes a typically good and well thought through point. I do not want to make a long speech, but the simple point—this is why I support the hon. Member for Stone—is that if the House decides by a simple majority that it has lost confidence in the Government of the day, that should be enough. We invoke what people outside think, but they would be astonished if they thought that the Members of Parliament, regardless of party labels, whom they send to the House to represent them were able to pass a vote of no confidence in the Government, but not by what has been called a sufficient super-majority to make any difference. We would seem not to have been given additional powers, as the Minister seems to argue, but to be impotent. That cannot be good for Parliament, for politicians and certainly not for any of us as individual Members of Parliament. I am pleased to support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stone and I hope hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will support it in the Lobby if there is a Division.