Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

It is a pleasure to agree with my hon. Friend in a European debate. He is absolutely right. Labour Members are very worried about the verdict of the British electorate, partly because of the way they have behaved over the Lisbon treaty. We shall get to the general election and see how the people judge them then. We then heard criticism from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who said that our position was not sufficiently clear and attempted to contrast it with what he believed was the clarity provided on these matters by the Liberal Democrats. Let me summarise their position throughout the whole Lisbon process. When we debated it in this House, the Liberals argued again and again that they wanted an in-out referendum on membership of the European Union. They organised a contrived sixth-form walk-out to try to get a vote on that matter, and then when it actually came to the vote on whether we should have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which they had promised in their manifesto, they abstained. Moving on to the other place, the saga continued. We should bear it in mind that the Liberals had abstained on a referendum on Lisbon in this House, despite their manifesto promise. When it fell to their peers to echo the work of their colleagues in this House and they had a vote on a referendum on Lisbon, they voted against it. They then had an opportunity to vote on an amendment on whether to have an in-out referendum, which the Liberal Democrats in this House had spent weeks and weeks trying every possible device in the depths of "Erskine May" to bring about a vote on. They had been desperate in the Commons to have a vote on an in-out referendum, but when the issue got to the Lords they voted against it. And yet the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton has the brass neck to come to the House this evening and say that we are unclear and inconsistent. What a remarkable way to conduct parliamentary debate. The Liberal Democrats have been completely inconsistent, and I reiterate that if they had supported us at the time of the debates on the Lisbon treaty, there were enough potential Labour rebels to give the people of this country the referendum that they had been promised all along. We know it, he knows it, his colleagues behind him know it and the Government know it too. I say to him, please do not ever come back here and lecture us on votes on a referendum.