European Union Bill

My Lords, the whole Bill has had some sense of unreality about it since it started. The more that one looks at it, the clearer one issue becomes. Whatever we do with the Bill, it will not operate in the lifetime of this Parliament. I have never come across a situation in which, in the first year of a new Government, legislation is introduced that is designed to affect not the current Government but the next one. We have had assurances from the Government that none of the issues that will provoke a referendum will happen in this Parliament because the Government will make sure that they do not. What on earth are we playing at? Shall we seriously sit down and produce the details of a major constitutional change against the background of a Government saying, ““Don’t bother about it too much, although it may be a major constitutional change””, which moving from a parliamentary system to one of referenda clearly is? The Government are saying to us all, ““It’s not going to happen. It will happen only in the next Parliament, but we shall legislate now so that it is on the statute book when the next Government come in””. Frankly, that is unreal and unfair and should be resisted.