European Union Bill

Presumably, not everything will be put to a referendum. As has been said, a future Parliament can repeal the Bill as an Act, but once an Act that gives rights to people to be consulted in a referendum has become entrenched, it is much more difficult to take those rights away than not to have provided the plebiscite in the first place. I echo the question of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr: is there any case in which a Government have said in a Bill, ““We are not legislating for this Parliament. The referendum lock will never be triggered in this Parliament. We are legislating not to restrict our own actions but those of a future Parliament””? We are going to restrict the decisions which they might wish to take. I believe that that in itself is, as Professor Vernon Bogdanor, an eminent constitutional expert, has declared, fundamentally unconstitutional. I add to those who are worried about the coalition agreement that nothing in that is infringed by the amendment. The amendment does not restrict this Parliament, to which the coalition agreement obtains. The coalition agreement is not for future Parliaments. Who knows what the coalition agreement for the next Parliament will be? Who knows who will win the election or who the coalition partners might be? As the amendment says, very well, let the Government have this Bill—probably mainly to appease their Eurosceptics—but for this Parliament only.