My Lords, I think the House wants the Minister to reply, so I was thinking that we are probably ready to end this debate.
I have just heard the first case against referendums, which is that a referendum made my country of Wales dry—and that argument was in support of them. It was certainly dry on a Sunday when I was growing up; and this is the ex-director of Alcohol Concern confessing this.
We have considerable sympathy with one part of these amendments: that the Government cannot be allowed to mark their own homework regarding the outcome of the withdrawal negotiations, be that on Gibraltar, which is mentioned in one of them, our future relations with the EU or the withdrawal deal itself. We discussed last week, as a number of noble Lords have said, the need for a meaningful vote by Parliament on the deal and indeed on what should happen if the deal fails to win approval by the British Parliament. We also considered then the desire of some for a future referendum on the terms of the deal.
As the Committee knows, and as the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Newby, have said, we see it as essential that there is a proper, meaningful vote on the terms of our withdrawal. We trust that the amendment we will table on Report will find favour in this House and later, we hope, at the other end. As to what should happen if that deal is rejected, surely that must be decided at the time, in the full knowledge of the situation, by the House of Commons. It could be, as in a later amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, by extending the Article 50
period. It might be by revoking the Article 50 notification. It could indeed be by a referendum, though perhaps the wording would be a matter for then, rather than by amendment today. But the first judgment on the terms must surely be for this sovereign Parliament and, if it says no, it must then be Parliament that takes responsibility for what should be the next step. That means nothing is ruled out, which therefore means nothing is set in stone at this moment.