Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

No, that is not true. I am grateful to my hon. Friend—and incidentally, I am glad that he has tabled this amendment, because this is one of the significant issues in trying to ensure that we scrutinise treaties better. That is not only our aim but our determination. Other elements of the legislative process, too, are subject to time limits, and their explanatory memorandums are not required in statute. My sole objection is to writing the procedure into the Bill. I want to respond to the point made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) that some treaties would be brought forward and some would not. That is not true. Arthur Ponsonby, when he was Under-Secretary of State in 1924, said:""It is the intention of His Majesty's Government to lay on the table of both Houses of Parliament every treaty, when signed, for a period of 21 days, after which the treaty will be ratified and published and circulated in the Treaty Series."" We are not resiling from that one jot. It was a Labour member of the Foreign Office team who introduced that in 1924. When the Conservatives came to power subsequently they got rid of the Ponsonby rule, and it took a Labour Government to reinstate it afterwards.