Fixed Term Parliaments Bill

I understand what the hon. Lady says, but the same thing would happen in a fixed-term Parliament, as we can see in the USA at present. The Americans have been campaigning for a long time—it seems like centuries. They refer to President Bush as a lame duck president because his term of office will soon be finished, but he is still in office. The circumstances she describes arise just as much in fixed-term systems as in flexible systems. It is all part of the democratic process. A cross-party organisation called Fixed Term was set up in October 2007—I do not know whether the hon. Member for Cambridge was a mover. The organisation campaigns for fixed-term Parliaments and has published the results of a poll conducted in October 2007. It found that 25 per cent. of Conservative MPs, 41 per cent. of Labour MPs and 88 per cent. of Liberal Democrat MPs support fixed-term Parliaments. If anything was to convince me to be against any Bill it would be the fact that 88 per cent. of Liberal Democrats but only 25 per cent. of Conservatives are in favour of it. I did not quite understand the relevance of the other statistics published by Fixed Term, which tell us that 43 per cent. of male MPs, but 49 per cent. of female MPs, support fixed-term Parliaments. I could not understand why the organisation had bothered to research such information until the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made a point with which I entirely agree. I can now understand why female Members of Parliament are more in favour of fixed-term Parliaments, and I might even be persuaded on that point myself, but not this afternoon. The strongest argument for change is that the incumbent Prime Minister has an unfair advantage. As I said earlier, it is ironic that the one person who would prefer a fixed-term Parliament system right now is the incumbent Prime Minister. The debate has been valuable, and I am sure it will become even more valuable as we hear what the Minister has to say. I want to ensure that she has plenty of time to address the issues, and I am certain this will not be the last time that we debate the matter over the coming months.