---

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

That is an even more ingenious attempt, Mr Deputy Speaker, because it is harder for me to appeal to you for succour on this point, but I reject my hon. Friend's point because I believe that the Bill is one of principle. I believe that the idea of Prime Ministers picking the dates of elections is wholly outrageous in a modern democracy and that we must have fixed-term Parliaments. I happen to know that this argument has been raging inside the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties for years, so it is a cause of high principle. The history of the British constitution is that changes of high principle happen only when the parties in power see political advantage in such change; that is how democracy works. Britain has been reformed when the great causes have been aligned with low party interest and I thank—I am not sure if I am allowed to say what I was going to say—the stars that in this Parliament at this time that alliance of high principle and low politics has come together and that we are putting through Parliament a Bill that will establish fixed-term elections and remove the Prime Minister's right to choose a date that is to his or her advantage.