I hope my opening remarks made it quite clear that the one thing I am not going to do is get drawn back into this entertaining procedural debate we had earlier on. It seems to me as plain as a pikestaff that if we have a vote at 10 pm on what is apparently on the Order Paper, the Government will be bound either to proceed with the opt-in to 35 measures or not to proceed with the opt-in to any of them. I repeat that the public are expecting the House of Commons to debate this seriously. It may be that there are not enough Members of Parliament against it and there are not enough arguments against it to delay us much longer, but I do not think that is the case. Some very respectable Government Members are going to oppose it—if they ever get the chance.
One way or another, this argument about whether or not the strict requirements of parliamentary procedure—allowing everybody to get wildly indignant about what we all know is synthetic anger at the way the procedures have been brought forward—is not a wise way of proceeding. One thing that unites most Members so far, all the way from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) to me, is that we think these are serious issues, and to break down now in an atmosphere of such trivial argument will be a triumph for the UKIP but something that all of us ought to regret.
7.36 pm