I trust I will be judged a suitable speaker to make sure the Chamber is not completely empty.
I am delighted to speak in this debate, which has so far lived up to expectations. I would not have missed it for the world, because it must be one of the oddest debates ever held in this Chamber on a private Member’s Bill Friday. It is odd because of the politics of the occasion. I do not think there has been a private Member’s Bill Friday in the time that I have been in this House when the Prime Minister has been forced by his Back Benchers to come here to jump to their tune. Normally, Prime Ministers hold a sort of lofty disdain for private Members’ Bills, but our Prime Minister, in the eyes of Europe, has been humiliated here today by his own Back Benchers. That is one oddity about today. The second oddity is the reason the Bill is here at all, which I shall come to, and the third oddity is what is in it.