European Union Bill

No, I specifically excluded the House of Lords. It was the House of Commons. The House of Commons had before the meeting of its committee a Member of this House, who tried to explain exactly why the Government acted as they did. I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, winds up, he will assure me that this would be better parliamentary scrutiny than what is contained in the Bill. I come back to the noble Lord who was excoriating all the people who are opposed to further European integration. He well knows that I was never in favour of joining the EEC or the Common Market, as it was. I still believe that this country would be better off out of it. The Daily Express has been trying to give people the opportunity to have a say whether we should remain in. I noticed in last Sunday’s Sunday Express that one of Nick Clegg’s most senior advisers—Mr Tim Farron, the president of the Liberal Democrats—had called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. He said that Britain’s relationship with the EU has become so poisonous—poisonous, mind you; I have never used that sort of language—that voters deserved a chance to express their views in a referendum on membership of the bloc. Those are not the words of any Liberal councillor; he is the president of the Lib Dems. The noble Lord presumably excludes his own president from his excoriation. He will have to be careful whom he excoriates in the future.