European Union Bill

My Lords, the second point to which I wanted to draw attention is a theme that has come through in all these debates. All I shall say in a few sentences is to try to make explicit in Hansard what should be implicit for anyone who reads our proceedings with any degree of attention. A clear difference is emerging between those of us who are in favour of the Bill and those of us who are against it as regards the role of Parliament and our view of Parliament’s constitutional importance, functioning, efficacy and efficiency. It is clear that the coalition Government and those who support them in this Bill do not really believe in Parliament in the same way that those of us on the other side of the argument do. That is a sobering thought, because until now, for hundreds of years, there has been no distinction between the parties about Parliament and the fact that it is the best way of taking complex decisions on behalf of the country. That is why most of us came into politics and public life in the first place. It was because we wanted to be part of that process and to influence it in one way or another. All parties in this country and all of us who have stood for public elected office have always believed that Parliament was the best possible mechanism for achieving good governance and for making sure that complex arguments had been viewed from their different perspectives and debated, and that we came to a mature and considered conclusion on difficult issues. I am very proud of being here in the mother of Parliaments. Now half our Members in this House this afternoon—perhaps more than half; I do not know, but we will see what happens in the vote—are sceptical about Parliament. They pay lip service to it and, no doubt, see some role for it, but they are clearly very sceptical indeed about Parliament. They do not think that Parliament is mature enough or sufficient for the purpose of deciding complex questions in the future. They want to go back to this Napoleonic concept of the plebiscite or referendum as a mechanism that is superior to that of parliamentary government. That is a sobering thought. I will not go further into the constitutional implications or the historical significance of that because it would take me well outside the amendment we are debating. However, it has been a theme which, unambiguously, has emerged from the debates we have been having on this Bill. It is something that we should all reflect on carefully because the long-term consequences of such a split in what has always been a constitutional consensus in this country are to my mind very sobering indeed.