My Lords, I was going to start by saying that I thought that there was a lot of common ground between my views and what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, was saying until, unfortunately, his last comment, which I was not able to go along with. But I certainly agree with him in his support for the principle of a referendum on occasions, and particularly his reference to Northern Ireland. The very existence of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom depends on referenda; that is the constitutional position that we have established, and its value has been shown. But there is common ground.
I accept that this is not a normal parliamentary Bill—or it is not a normal Private Member’s Bill, let us put it that way. It is due to the courtesy of the coalition that we have to go about it in this way. That is what is being respected. The other problem about the courtesy of coalition makes difficult another of the propositions of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, which I would otherwise strongly support. I refer to the difficulty of entering now into negotiations on this matter, which the coalition may make more difficult.
Having said that, I think that there is general agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, made the point that it is quite wrong for us to lay down an Act of Parliament that will affect things that successive Parliaments may want to do. But how many Acts of Parliament might that apply to? That is what Parliaments do. No Parliament can bind its successor; if the successor Parliament is deeply offended by something, it can change it. That is our parliamentary process.
We all come to this without trailing clouds of glory and with some memories of our previous involvement. I was in Parliament when we joined the Common Market, and I supported Prime Minister Heath at that time. I voted yes in the referendum in 1975 and then found myself as the Minister representing the United Kingdom, first for environment and then for employment. I had a whole succession of ministerial meetings. I worked at first with my noble friend Lord Heseltine, a staunch European who found his Europeanism was helped by never attending any of those meetings. I actually did them all, and it was a test of one’s European faith, at three o’clock in the morning in Luxembourg or Brussels, on some of the turgid exercises that we got involved in. But what I remember, if course, is that we joined the six—and we were part of the nine. I tested one or two of my distinguished colleagues of this House in asking them how many members there now are of the European Union. I have to say, sparing one or two blushes here, that neither of them got it right.