Steve Brine has spoken out in the Commons in the second reading debate of the House of Lords Reform Bill.
The debate has been leading the news agenda since the weekend, and the Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP had to cancel a number of constituency and Parliamentary engagements in order to attend the debate, which was held over Monday and Tuesday.
While Steve believes in reform, and has said that he hopes Parliament can now work towards finding the consensus that was discussed in the Conservative manifesto in 2010, it now remains to be seen how Ministers wish to proceed with the Bill and its specific proposals, following the 11th hour withdrawal of the programme motion on Tuesday afternoon.
He said: "This is a bad Bill being brought forward at totally the wrong time for the worst of reasons. You don't take a bulldozer to the constitution of this country for the expediency of coalition politics. I recognise of course that for some people this is a clear priority while many others are bemused to see MPs spending any time on the subject.
"I my opinion, the last thing this country needs right now is a new raft of expensive party politicians setting up a permanent stand-off between the two Houses of Parliament.
"I take every vote in the House of Commons extremely seriously and have always been clear I won't slavishly follow the whips orders. It's never easy to vote against your Government but this Bill is a mess and Ministers now need to decide what they do with it."
More information...
You can read Steve's speech at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2012-07-09a.24.1&s=speaker%3A24901#g87.0, and you can watch the debate back (with Steve speaking at 7.13pm) via http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11097.