Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

If I may, I would like to at least develop the argument enough for the hon. Gentleman to be able to fire it down good and proper. Once we have passed this Bill and created five-year Parliaments and the expectation that they are the norm for this country, the constitution will have changed. The way in which the sovereign uses her powers to invite people to form Governments, to see whether they can win the confidence of this House, to prorogue and to accept advice from a Prime Minister will change. We will all make the argument that it would be profoundly unconstitutional for a Prime Minister who had just lost a vote of no confidence to abuse his power as the monarch's sole adviser to advise her to prorogue a Parliament. It would be absolutely within the monarch's rights to say, ““I am defending the constitution. I am defending this new expectation that we should have five-year Parliaments by trying to see whether there is somebody other than this loser, who has just lost the confidence of the House, who can command a majority. That does not interfere with Parliament or government—I am in fact interpreting properly the will of the people, which is that we should have five-year terms.”” I believe that the hon. Member for Rhondda thinks that these rules are unchanging and unbending and that they will not shift and metamorphose in response to the Bill.