European Union Bill

My Lords, for the purposes of this very narrow amendment, we accept that the Minister of the Crown cannot agree anything without a draft decision being approved by an Act of Parliament and the referendum condition being met. That means that in the case provided for in Clause 4 there is a referendum if necessary and the referendum result is positive. Most of us on this side of the House think that that is a monstrous situation to put the country in. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the amendment, we accept that and that the Government will not be able to agree to any of those decisions without a referendum or an Act of Parliament, and in many cases both. The amendment is designed to question the words ““or otherwise support””. That is why I am just as shocked as my noble friend Lord Liddle that the Government cannot accept it. What is the purpose of including ““or otherwise support””? Surely, throughout the Bill the Government have been arguing to prevent this country acceding to or being party to any decision on constitutional change, such as the introduction of qualified majority voting, without going over these thresholds of Acts of Parliament and a referendum. The words ““or otherwise support””, as in the text, imply that it is an additional restriction. What does that mean? We would like specific answers from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, if he is summing up the debate on the behalf of the Government. Does it mean that a Minister would not be able to say, ““I personally support this but I need the agreement of my colleagues before I can go along with it.””? Is the text designed to prevent that sort of conversation taking place? Is it designed to prevent the Minister saying, ““The British Government support this, amazingly, but we’ll have to have a referendum because we have imposed this Act on ourselves””? Is that what ““or otherwise support”” means? Does the Minister want to intervene and perhaps answer my questions?