European Union Bill

No, my Lords, of course that is not the case. The point about what has happened in the very recent past is that not only did one of the parties in the referendum say in its manifesto that it would not raise fees but its members signed individual pledges to their electorates to say that they would not increase them, let alone put them up by three times. I do not take the noble Lord’s point on that; it was rather a weak one. I return to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. We understand that he has very robust views, as do many of his noble colleagues, but I hope that the Conservative Benches have listened to what I thought was the generous support from the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. There can be no doubt where he stands on the European Union and yet he and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, are willing to compromise on this issue. They are willing to acknowledge some of the points that have been raised on the Conservative Benches—and I make the point that it is very much the Conservative Benches, with one or two exceptions on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Hannay, and others are willing to support referendums on the really important issues. That is the point. We are not saying no; we are saying, ““Let’s listen to what our own Constitution Committee, with its representatives from the Conservative Benches, has said unanimously on this issue””, and it has said that referendums must be kept for the really important constitutional issues. If we do not concentrate on what is important, where we should be concentrating the British public’s attention, then indeed we do have a big argument about the role of Parliament and we do start to get into the fundamental constitutional issue of what Parliament is here to do. It has been said that people will really want to have these referendums. I put it to your Lordships that we all know that is not true; of course they will not want them. They would want them on the euro; if we decided that we were going to leave the European Union; on Schengen issues, because immigration is such a major issue; and on whether or not there should be a European army. Those are the fundamental issues that have been at the centre of most of the arguments in this House in the whole time that I have been here, listening as we went through them over and over again. I suggest to your Lordships that going through the long list in front of us will do nothing to make the British public more confident in what we are doing here. Frankly, it will make them think that we have been dealing with trivia instead of with the important issues that face us.