Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Of course. I was going to come on to that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for leading me down that path. There is no reason to rush through legislation for a fixed-term Parliament, because, even if we do not have the Bill, there is no prospect of a general election being called, in almost any circumstances, within the next three years. The Liberal Democrat and Labour parties were committed by their manifestos to the principle of a fixed-term Parliament, but the Conservatives' proposal ran directly counter to that, because it stated that a general election should be called within six months of any change of Prime Minister, meaning that, if the Prime Minister had suddenly passed away or something else had happened to him and he was no longer in office, we could have had a general election within a twelvemonth. We know, however, that the structure of the Bill and the rush derive not from the pursuit of a sensible idea for which there is all-party support, but from narrow, partisan reasons related to the internal chemistry that both parties feared and, I think, still fear could be explosive in difficult circumstances.