European Union Bill

I should like to endorse the general thrust of the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), although I must qualify that slightly by saying that I do not take the view that there is a difference between different types of statute. However, that does not make a material difference to the thrust of his argument, which is that we must at all costs preserve the right of this House ultimately to make the decisions. Indeed, in the 1870s—it might have been earlier—the statesman John Bright put forward the proposition that led to the Parliament Act 1911, some 30 years before it was implemented, precisely because he did not believe in privilege, in aristocracy or in the House of Lords as it was then constituted. The reality is that we can achieve the objectives by adopting the new clause without necessarily accepting that the House of Lords could not become an elected body if that were the view of this House in due course. I do not accept the proposition put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) because so long as we have a second Chamber, the House of Lords will be the House of Lords—irrespective of whether it is elected. The question of constitutional statutes has been introduced as a notion, but it is not intrinsic to the argument. What is essential is to ensure that we do not allow the Supreme Court to adjudicate over and above the decisions taken by our Parliament. That is the key issue. Some futile commentators—and, if I may say so, some Members of this House—mislead themselves from time to time by suggesting that sovereignty is not such an important issue. The reason for its importance is very simple: we Members are elected to make decisions, and all the other issues, such as dealing with burdens on business and so forth, stem from that. That explains my view of the European Union, which is that, where necessary, the sovereign Parliament should override through the ““notwithstanding”” formula to which my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset rightly referred and which I have employed on a number of occasions when I have been supported by Conservative Front-Bench Members—for example, when we were in opposition and with respect to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, and on other occasions. What we need to insist on above all—it cropped up in the previous debate—is that this House on behalf of the electorate represents the democratic process whereby we are voted in to make decisions. We must insist on that at the expense of judicial supremacy. Even though I am the first to say that it is for the courts to interpret legislation, it is not for them to make it. That is the fundamental point. I thoroughly endorse both the sentiments and the wording of the new clause.