European Union Bill

Withdrawal from the common fisheries policy was not in the manifesto, although it might have been in the personal manifestos of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I gave it as an example because I believe it has a great deal of cross-party support. Most people think the common fisheries policy is extremely badly run and is not in the interests of the fish or the fishermen. Casting all those dead fish back into the sea is not my idea of conservation and it does not bring cheap fish to the fish market either, so it does not seem to be good news. Successive Governments have always said that they quite agree with those of us who make such points, but they have never managed to negotiate a better deal. Would it not be wonderful if the Government said, ““If we cannot negotiate a better deal next year, we will use British parliamentary sovereignty to pull out of the CFP””? I would like to do that and I do not think it would be tantamount to leaving the European Union. It would be pretty cross, but it would probably do a deal with us because it would be more embarrassing to have a sovereign Parliament taking unilateral legislative action than to do a deal. I hope the EU would do a deal; it would be sensible for it to do so. If we are not prepared at some point to assert our power, we lose our sovereignty. Just as the Crown lost its sovereignty, became the Crown in Parliament and eventually lost practically all its real powers, so this Parliament is losing its powers. If it goes on losing them, without sensible provision being made of the kind proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and without at some point standing up for a better deal for Britain, this Parliament, too, will no longer be sovereign.