Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) for tabling the amendments. What he is trying to accomplish is in the spirit of what the Prime Minister sought to do in his early works, on those bright, happy days of two years ago—to see a shift in the balance of power, to restore Parliament. That was the intent behind what the Prime Minister said, and I do not doubt that that was what he had in mind, in those brief moments of joy. However, in our constitutional arrangements and our system of government—I have reflected on this issue over many years, and it is common to more than just one Government or another—there is the concept of the Crown. From that emanates the concept of prerogative powers and the accretion of the governance of the United Kingdom. Ministers sometimes stand in this Chamber and endeavour from those concepts of the Crown to shift the great ship of state, and yet when we see the words produced by the machinery of government for those Ministers, who operate as the Crown, we see that intent become a weaker note—they do not accomplish what we understood from the brave words set out in "The Governance of Britain" or from those of the Secretary of State for Justice, the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister. Why should we not vote? Why should that not be the automatic response on something that can affect the lives of citizens? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) made the good point that the extradition treaty to which he referred was essentially negotiated in secrecy. We did not understand the intent and purpose behind it as we would have liked. We have been through the Lisbon process—the signing was an act of the Crown, but we had to legislate for it, because our dualist system for dealing with treaties makes it necessary to translate them into statute law for this country. That is what we have to do. However, the proposition in the Bill makes no such allowance. What the hon. Member for Cambridge and the Liberal Democrats have proposed and what my right hon. and learned Friend had to say were very well put. I have always believed that the presumption should be that laws can be made and treaties entered into only with the consent of the people as expressed through this Chamber. What is written in the Bill does not ensure that.