You may think that the Party system, and especially tough ‘whipping’ in recent years, has diminished the purpose of, and the passion for, Parliamentary debates.

We think nostalgically of the ‘great days’ – Thatcher, Churchill, Gladstone, Disraeli, Pitt the Younger – and bemoan the current generation of Parliamentary minnows by comparison to their killer whale oratory.

And to some extent we are right – 24/7 rolling media, the internet, televising the House of Commons and a decline in respect for Parliament have all played a part in changing what occurs there.

But let us not forget that the Parliament before the 1832 Great Reform Act was different to the Victorian one; which was then fundamentally changed by the First World War and universal suffrage. Nostalgic longing for an imagined Parliamentary golden era may be just that.

Parliamentary debate has come into its own twice this week. On Wednesday I was initially supportive of a new clause in the Defence Bill which was going through its ‘Report’ stage, which expressed our concerns about the government’s plans to replace 20,000 regular soldiers with a fully trained TA, 30,000 strong.

A group of us have been arguing against what the government is planning to do, and this seemed like a chance to translate those concerns into law.

The result was a fine debate, huge pressure exerted on the government, which feared losing a vote and accordingly made a number of useful concessions to our argument.

In the event, I supported the government against the rebel amendment, both because, had it been passed, it would have had no effect on the reductions in the size of the Army, which are already in place; but also because it would have hampered the reform and growth of the TA, which I support.

On Friday we had the second day’s discussion of the EU In/Out referendum bill which, if passed, will give us all a say on our membership of the EU in 2017. There are some who are opposed to any such referendum, and others who thought having the referendum in 2014 would be preferable.

It was once again a fine Parliamentary occasion on which, at least theoretically, the Commons could have changed the course of history. So rumours of the demise of Parliamentary democracy in the House of Commons may be, as Mark Twain said “somewhat exaggerated”.