Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

Hon. Members are saying that the provision does not say that. It is a matter of interpretation. In my judgment, if the matter were taken to court, it is inconceivable that a judge would conclude that some minor transfer would trigger this provision, as the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) attempted to suggest. But let us suppose that it did. What we should be seeing today is not the Liberal Democrats making some footling technical point about the amendment's drafting, but a constructive, helpful suggestion from them on how it might be improved. If they genuinely believe in consultative democracy for the people we represent, and if they really think that a referendum on European treaties would be a good thing, they should be tabling their own amendments and walking through the Lobby in support of the Conservative party. Instead, however, the Liberal Democrats have produced a position that they believe will please an electorate to whom they have to appeal, as they so often do. They know that the electorate to whom they have to appeal throughout the south-west—and in the constituency that I have the honour to represent—are profoundly Eurosceptic. Through the smokescreen of a generalised referendum on membership of the European Union, they hope to persuade those Eurosceptic people, who have otherwise broadly liberal tendencies, that they can offer them one thing while doing another. That is discreditable and cynical, but the reality is that it is what we have come to expect from that party. Let us concentrate on this measure. What conceivable objection could there be to providing the people of this country with a say on a treaty that transfers power to the European Union? Let us examine the objections that have been made here this afternoon. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who has just returned to his place, contended that this would result in multiple referendums. Yes, every few years, if there were additional treaties that transferred substantial powers, the people of this country would be offered the opportunity of a consultation. What is wrong with that? The measure would not result in multiple referendums. There would be a referendum every few years, and perhaps that would induce genuine caution in the politicians of the European Union before they created more treaties that transferred endless new powers and competences to distant institutions with which the people of this country feel no direct democratic connection. Perhaps those referendums would induce a welcome caution, as the peoples of the European Union—and specifically the British people—were offered the opportunity of a consultation and given their say. Perhaps they would provide a salutary lesson on introducing treaty after treaty while the people of this country—passive spectators—have to watch while the likes of the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) play games with, and make party political points about, the powers, privileges and inherent rights of Parliament. There was a piquant and poignant irony, I say to the Committee, in the position of the right hon. Gentleman. I have to say that it was an extraordinary spectacle to observe him defend parliamentary supremacy so that he could the more easier give it up; and to defend parliamentary sovereignty so that he did not have to submit the consistent surrender of the powers of this House to the people of this country. What an extraordinary irony, if there is anybody watching at this late hour, would be created in the minds of the interested spectator at the thought of the right hon. Gentleman standing up for the rights of Parliament and standing up for the sovereignty of Parliament—he, a member of a Government who have consistently undermined, corroded and eroded it for the last 12 years; a member of a Government who have consistently treated Parliament with disdain, contempt and scorn since the moment they came into power on a benighted day in May 1997. Let me say to the Committee that no more amusing, ironic and exquisite moment have I experienced in my short time here than in hearing the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman in defence of parliamentary sovereignty. There is a serious point here, Mrs. Heal—yes, there is, although if you listened to the right hon. Member for Rotherham, who I regret is not in his place, you would not think that anything serious was ever discussed on this subject in this House. Over the past 12 months it might have dawned on us, and the penny might have dropped, that the people of this country have stopped trusting us. They do not trust us any more in this House. They do not think that we stand up and defend the prerogatives of this House as we ought, and so the time has come when they are demanding a direct consultation on the surrender of the prerogatives and rights of this House. I, for one, agree that if one stood by the Diceyan purity of the peculiarly British notion of parliamentary sovereignty that the right hon. Gentleman was astonishingly defending, the referendum would be undesirable. If the House had stood tall and proud over the last 12 years—and, I make no bones about it, over the years preceding that—and resisted the encroachment of the Executive, and if it had stood up for the rights of the people of this country, I have no doubt that the people would be content to trust us as they were 50 years ago, but they are not. The last 12 months have further corroded and undermined that trust. The measure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is proposing is a modest, practical measure, designed to assure the people of this country—goodness knows, are they not entitled to that assurance?—that the Members of this House will have the humility to submit to them any further transfer of power to the European Union. I say that that is a perfectly honourable, proper, prudent, measured and appropriate proposal. The games played today make no commendable reflection on this Committee. I do not say that Government Members are not right to conclude or say that in relation to previous treaties, the Conservative party was not in favour of referendums, but the position has changed. The country is less trusting of us in the House. The country wants its say. If any people have been listening in or watching this debate this evening, they will have concluded with bafflement and bewilderment, "Don't they get it? Don't they really understand, even after the last 12 months?" This institution in which we have the enormous privilege of sitting to represent those people has fallen on hard times. The measure before us would provide a contract with the people of our country by, in effect, saying to them, "If we propose again to part in any substantial measure with any of the precious accumulation of power and privilege that over generations and centuries you have entrusted to this Parliament, we must not only debate that in this narrow Chamber, but we must take it to you, the country. We must submit it to your ultimate jurisdiction, and we must ask you whether you approve." I say that that is a good thing. It may not conform to the 19th century notion of parliamentary sovereignty, but the Labour party abandoned that long ago. It abandoned it through the Human Rights Act 1998, and it has abandoned it consistently time after time when it has acceded to European Union treaties. Sadly, that notion of parliamentary sovereignty is shot to pieces, therefore, which is why it made for such exquisite irony to listen to the right hon. Member for Rotherham defend it and offer it as the basis of his attack on this measure. Parliamentary sovereignty will now only be defended with confidence by the people of this country. That is what the public are now concluding, and this is a proper measure that the House should pass. It is not a difficult thing to do. I do not see why pro-European Labour Members such as the right hon. Gentleman should oppose it. Why should we not adopt an approach that is more like that of our continental European partners and Ireland, who grant referendums on such surrenders of constitutional power? I find the Liberal Democrats' position utterly bemusing. I do not think they really believe in it. At one point, they seemed to suggest that if we had a constitutional court and a written constitution, they might accept the direct referral of a new treaty to a plebiscite, but this proposal is no different from that. We do not have a written constitution, although some of us believe we should start to consider whether we should have one, but this measure would become a norm, much as five-year Parliaments have become the norm. They are not enshrined in a written constitution, but can anybody seriously doubt that if a Prime Minister or Government were to attempt to extend their life by statutory enactment, that would cause uproar throughout the country? Similarly, if we enshrine this measure in the Bill and it is passed by this House, it will become a constitutional norm—a norm that no Government would risk ever denying or ignoring. It will become, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh described it, a lock in the hearts of the British people. They will see it as a right that this House has conveyed to them, and they will defend it at the political cost and peril of any Government who seek to ignore it. I commend to the House this modest measure. It is not the "in or out" referendum that the Liberal Democrats want—apparently—or that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) wants. Indeed, I say to myself that I look forward to a time when it may be that we have to have such a plebiscite in order to help clear the air, but if we chose to remain inside the EU that does not mean that we should not have democratic consultations by way of referendums in the event of treaties that surrendered further power. The one does not exclude the other, and the time has come for this House to have the humility to accept that it is the people of this country who should decide in future on whether further powers are transferred to a European Union, in which they do not possess confidence, and in whose democratic credentials they have no faith.