Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

Indeed. The real reason why the Conservatives want to debate referendums tonight, despite their embarrassment at dropping their cast-iron guarantee, is that they do not want to debate the real issues on Europe. They have very firm few positions, as we saw when we debated the substance of the Lisbon treaty. I take the hon. Member for Rayleigh to task for the Conservatives' position on justice and home affairs, in particular. I shall not get into a detailed debate tonight, Mrs. Heal, because I am sure you would call me to order, but his party's leader has made it clear in public that the Conservatives want to take back competences on justice and home affairs—despite the successful work that is being done throughout Europe, particularly by Europol and Eurojust, and on the European arrest warrant. Serious crime is being tackled successfully. Drug trafficking, people trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and sex crimes of the worst kind are being successfully tackled through European co-operation, and the Conservatives' position is to remove Britain from that co-operation. I shall try to take the proposal seriously, even though it is seriously flawed. The Minister may provide more definitive legal views on the matter, but I wonder what is meant by "competences". In explanatory notes to the amendment, the hon. Member for Rayleigh says that the competences would be supplementary, shared or exclusive competences. However, what is the meaning of "supplementary" in the European treaties? For the EU, a supplementary competence is one whereby""the Union shall have competence to carry out actions"—" this is the important bit—""to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States"." When we look at the EU's competences that fit the definition of "supplementary", we find some very interesting ones. Under the hon. Gentleman's proposal, we would have referendums on transferring supplementary competences on culture, tourism and administrative co-operation. The Conservatives want a referendum on the bulk purchasing of paper clips. That is nonsense. It does not stand up to any serious scrutiny, and I do not believe that if they were in government, they would put forward this proposal. That is why the hon. Gentleman could not answer my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. The proposal is absolutely ludicrous.