Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Are you sure? I hope that I have expressed tonight a sincere and heartfelt view that, just as everything must be seen whence it sprang, this Bill, which we are considering in Committee, has sprung from a coalition that is fundamentally unsound and based not on political realities but expediency. The group of proposed changes before us, which would set the date, elections and length of a Parliament, would go some way towards mitigating this—I dare not say ““evil””, because that would be too strong a word—sordid, mean, pettifogging, limp, expediency of a Bill.