European Union (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Gentleman says that, but there will always be a problem of that sort with human languages and courts. There will never be absolute certainty or clarity about any legislative instrument. I turn to the other new clauses before us. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) for his new clause 8 on the Bill of Rights, but I cannot follow him on his new clause 9 on parliamentary supremacy. In new clause 8 he has come across a form of words and a way of dealing with a possible problem which is, in the immortal phrase, mostly harmless. The good thing about new clause 8 is that it concentrates on a traditional English way of dealing with problems by focusing on the remedy that someone might obtain, whereas new clause 9 is rather in the realms of theory. However, I am not entirely convinced any more that article IX of the Bill of Rights in its present form is desirable. There are problems with a legislative assembly being entirely immune to legal review. That tends to lead to a situation of lawlessness where arbitrary power can be exercised and minorities can be oppressed. I would not go as far as the late Member for New Ross in 1881, who described what sometimes happens in the House as ““unmitigated despotism””, but there is a problem. Nevertheless, the way to deal with that problem is certainly not to allow changes in article IX to come about by some kind of accident through changes in European legislation. If we were to reform article IX we should do so in a way that is proper and convenient for us across the entire range of possible legal problems, rather than only those that arise out of our relationship with the European Union. The question to ask about new clause 8, which might be a problem in the minds of my colleagues, is whether it might prevent ratification of the treaty. I do not think it can. That problem arises in many of the amendments tabled by certain hon. Members, but not in this case. The argument against the new clause must be only that it is not necessary. It is already the case that nothing in existing European legislation threatens article IX. I shall be interested to hear from the hon. Gentleman whether he can point to any changes specifically in the Lisbon treaty that would have that effect. We have had the experience of the past quarter of a century with the legal position being fundamentally the same as it is now, and so far no obvious problems have arisen.