Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

I note that the Prime Minister's drinks party has clearly ended, because the whole Conservative party has gathered in the Chamber. We heard earlier that the Prime Minister had been serving reasonably priced drinks, so I hope that all hon. Members paid for them. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) accused me of being far too tidy. Nobody has ever accused me of that before. He thinks that trying to tidy up legislation is a socialist endeavour, but surely that is what we do. The constant process that we are engaged in—the constant iteration of legislation—means looking at the common law and regularly updating it in statute. For instance, I do not know whether he knows what a brothel is, but—[Interruption.] I see from his face that he does. In common law, the definition of a brothel is a place frequented by men to perform lewd homosexual practices, including dancing, so sometimes it is necessary to correct the common law. Some of what we are doing in this Bill is putting convention and common law into statute. The danger is that we will end up with a series of unintended consequences, and that is what I want to tidy up. The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted much less electioneering and campaigning, which is why he wanted shorter election campaigns—in a lighter moment he said that he wanted an eight or 12-day election campaign. I would just say to him again that there would be great advantages in having a 25-day election campaign. It would mirror what happens in the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and local elections, and would allow service voters, who regularly try to vote, but whose votes do not arrive in the post in time, to have their votes counted. I very much hope that we will be able to move forward on that. I welcome what the Deputy Leader of the House said about the measure just now, although I have never heard a Minister say at the Dispatch Box about an amendment, ““This is the right Bill to do it in””—it is always another place where it should be done. However, I am afraid that we are going to hold his feet to the fire on this occasion. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), who holds the record in the ““Guinness World Records”” for rowing across the Atlantic, took us through a fair amount of British history. He effectively argued for longer and longer Parliaments. What I would say to him—and to all Government Members—is that the provisions in the Bill will mean that this Parliament is the longest Parliament in the world, as was confirmed by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) this evening. The fixed term of five years, plus the additional provision of another two months, will make it the longest in the world. There will be fewer elections because of what this Bill will do. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who is not in his place, said that the current special circumstances made that all the more important. That is the charge that every dictator has always advanced: that one should fix the constitution to meet the special circumstances of the day. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire asked why we had specified 15 working days, and also asked what the definition of a working day was. If he had actually read the Bill, he would see that clause 3(5) says: