Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

May I put to the House a different question from the one put by my hon. Friend, which, I think, answers his question? Let us say that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is accepted by the House and that such a duty is placed on a Government. There is then a substantial transfer of competences—I shall use the phrase "substantial transfer", as it comes back to that—and the Government decline to honour that obligation. Let us say that a citizen then goes to the courts. The courts' only obligation and duty at that point will be to determine whether the Government have complied with the statutory obligation introduced by my hon. Friend's amendment. I question whether that wider jurisdiction of which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has just been speaking will come into play. I think that the issue at that point is a very narrow one and that the citizen would find the relief that he or she sought. Let me make my final point on the other objection, which was advanced primarily by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and was echoed by Liberal Democrat Members, too. It has some force. I differ on this point from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox), as I do not think that we should feel obliged to submit every single transfer of competence to a referendum. We are talking about substantial competences, and my hon. and learned Friend used the phrase himself. The only issue that I have with the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is that he has not used the concept or the language of substantial competences. I think that we should do that, if this matter goes forward. It is merely a matter of drafting and it should be possible for us to deal with it by ensuring that a referendum applies only to substantial or significant—the language is variable—transfers of competence. If that is not possible, although I suspect that it will be, there is another way forward, which is to create the presumption that there is always a referendum but to contain within the legislation a power to disapply that presumption if the House is willing to disapply it. That would depend very much on the political context of the time.