European Union Bill

Amendments 1 and 3 stand in my name. My comments boil down to what I said in my interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and were somewhat anticipated by the Minister earlier. In a nutshell, I see no reason why clause 2 should refer to an exemption condition or subsection (3) should state:"““The exemption condition is that the Act providing for the approval of the treaty states that the treaty does not fall within section 4.””" Without any further let or hindrance, clause 4(4) would exclude from those arrangements that would result in a proposal for a referendum:"““the codification of practice under””" the treaties already established"““in relation to the previous exercise of an existing competence””," and"““the making of any provision that applies only to member States other than the United Kingdom””." That is, I think, an incredibly important point. Also, as we have debated already, it would remove"““in the case of a treaty, the accession of a new member State””," which in this case would include Turkey. In the context of what the Government clearly want to exclude—in other words, their positive policy decision not to allow the British people a referendum on certain treaties of immense importance—they are disavowing the very intentions and principles that underpin the Bill. I have made that point before over the question of sovereignty, where there is a massive contradiction between what is on the tin and what is in the Bill. I say again that those of us who spoke in favour of the sovereignty of Parliament won the argument, but that was not on the tin and it was not what the Whips—or, indeed, the Prime Minister—wanted, so it was voted down. That does not reflect particularly well—if I may say so—on our democratic system. We are faced with exactly the same point here. We are told on the tin that we will have a referendum on important matters—that is the general idea as explained in the Foreign Secretary's article in The Sunday Telegraph only a week ago—but on examination in Committee, it becomes perfectly obvious that certain kinds of treaty will be excluded. I have mentioned the example of Turkey, but I want to give another specific example of the kind of treaty that would be excluded.