Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

Well quite! My attempt to frustrate ratification on that occasion was turned down by the administrative court on the grounds that I was seeking to engage in a political exercise, but it did not award costs against me. In 1993—I think—an important case was also brought by Lord Rees-Mogg in respect of ratification. All such cases turn on when the ratification takes place, by which time the particular Bill has gone through, and the legislation has endorsed the treaty and so on. These are fundamental questions. If the Government say in good faith that there should be a moment for Parliament properly to influence the process, that moment should come on signature, not ratification. I shall explain later why that is so important and relate it to what is contained in the Vienna convention. Those are serious matters. For some of the reasons given by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), the procedure proposed by the Government in clauses 24 to 26 is a smoke screen. The Government—I accused them of this in the debate on the programme motion—are engaged in a process of hypocrisy. The idea of good governance, the ideas in the Green Paper and all the other things that have been referred to give the impression that the Government want the British people and Parliament to be fully involved in the making of treaties. I am afraid, however, that the way they are doing that gives them far too much of a get out. As Mr. Bowman of the Nottingham treaty centre said, the Bill contains a significant loophole in respect of memorandums of understanding, which I mentioned earlier. Many treaty-like documents do not fall within the framework of the provisions and, as with the Ponsonby rule, only treaties requiring ratification or similar are covered. For example, excluded, but covered by special procedures, would be double taxation agreements and European treaties—no doubt we will come to that later. I have in mind arrangements under European parliamentary legislation and special procedures applied under the European Communities Act 1972, as amended. Many other types of treaty, such as defence treaties, including—interestingly enough—not unimportant treaties on the stationing of ballistic missiles, would not be included. Indeed, many international lawyers regard memorandums of understanding as actual treaties. There is a certain disingenuousness in the Government's proposals—they go so far but not far enough—and an element of what I have described as hypocrisy in how they have presented them. However, I do not want to be too critical because basically they are moving in the right direction. Between the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge, the remarks by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and the Government's proposals, we are making some progress. However, I do not think that the drafting is good enough nor the intentions sufficiently comprehensive. We are moving in the right direction but not achieving enough.