European Union Bill

The Minister has gone into an interesting point, which I wanted to ask about. The Stuart Wheeler case is relevant because there were attempts by a number of people to suggest that Parliament should suspend the completion of the ratification process until the judgment on the case was reached. The Government of the day declined that, correctly in my view, but the noble Lord is quite right that the deposit of the instrument of ratification took place after the court had ruled. It is not quite that the ratification was not complete; the deposit of the instrument of ratification, which is the last stage, had not happened. Am I taking it from him that the Government’s view will be in future that, if this sort of situation arises, they will not interrupt the parliamentary process of taking a decision on the European Union matter that is before them, so that the only impediment will be to the final deposit of an instrument of ratification and not to the completion of the parliamentary ratification?