It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). I just want to pick up on one point. He said that votes for women were inevitable. I disagree. I of course passionately support women having the vote and it seems inevitable to us today, but it took a first world war and millions of people slaughtered across the continent for the political class in this country to change its mind on women’s votes. Nearly every political reform that has happened in this country that has been worth having has had to be fought for and has never been inevitable.
The first Reform Bill, when it came through the Commons in 1830, was carried by a single vote. Mrs Thatcher only became Prime Minister because of a single vote in the no confidence vote in 1979. Habeas corpus, when it was put on the statute book in 1679, was carried by two votes in the House of Lords because a very fat peer was counted as 10 votes—it should never have passed. If one believes in parliamentary reform, one has to campaign for it and to fight for it. Nothing is ever inevitable. I know the hon. Gentleman has been fighting and that is why I do not think he should undermine his cause.