Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

It is difficult to follow that contribution, so I shall not try to do so; I shall follow the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who was wonderfully brief—on the whole, I endorse that example. We should go back to first principles and ask ourselves the following question: what is a transfer of competence? It is, in fact, a diminution of sovereignty; although people say that it is shared sovereignty, that is a different way of saying that it is a diminution of sovereignty. As a matter of general principle, if one wishes to diminish sovereignty, one should consult the people whose sovereignty one holds in one's hands—that means the electorate. I agree that we have often not observed that principle. I am the first to admit that we did not observe it over the Maastricht treaty and we should have done—looking back, that was an error. We did observe it with regard to devolution, which is a case in point. We consulted the electorate in Scotland and in Wales as to whether that transfer of sovereignty should take place—perhaps we should have also consulted in England, where the parallel would have been even more acute, because we diminished our sovereignty when we transferred to Scotland and Wales some part of our domestic powers. The proposition that where a diminution of sovereignty is involved the electorate should be consulted is extremely difficult, as a general principle, to refute. I apologise for the fact that I have not heard all of this debate, but I have heard most of it and it seems to me that two substantive arguments have been advanced against that proposition. The first, which was advanced by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), has faults because often small transfers of sovereignty take place. For example an accession treaty in respect of Croatia might involve relatively minor transfers of sovereignty. Would we wish to subject that to a referendum? I shall return to that issue in a moment, because it is a real one. The second, which was also raised by the right hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), deals with the competences of courts, and I shall deal with that first. Where there is a duty on a Government to subject a certain class of treaty to a referendum and the Government decline to meet that obligation, the citizen should have a right to go to the court. I do not think that this would happen often, because initially a political decision would have to be made as to whether or not to hold a referendum, and politicians are not so stupid—as a general rule—as to ignore the political climate in which they operate. Let us assume that a Government do choose to ignore that political climate. In such circumstances, is it not right that there is another authority that says of that Government, "You are not fulfilling your legal obligation." I do not find that in any way repellent as a principle, nor is it inconsistent with our general constitution, because time and again the Executive are challenged in the courts by the process of judicial review. That is not different in principle from what I am discussing, because when we say that the Government decline to put an issue to a referendum, we are saying no more than that Ministers collectively decline to do that. There is no difference in principle from subjecting that decision to judicial review from subjecting the decision of an individual Minister—