European Union (Amendment) Bill

You are absolutely right, Mrs. Heal. My point was about clause 3 and scrutiny, and I was simply about to say that the argument of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was that an amendment proposed by Conservative Front Benchers deleted the words from the treaty, when in fact it did not. That amendment was proposed by a Back Bencher and we did not support it. Not only did the Government fail to scrutinise the Bill; they did not even scrutinise the Order Paper properly, which is even more embarrassing. Therefore, I have given three reasons that the clause should not stand part of the Bill. There is another. Earlier, we tabled amendments that would have made the clause less dangerous. In particular, amendment No. 39, ably introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), would have made all the changes subject to the affirmative, rather than the negative, procedure. Had the Government been prepared to accept that amendment, we would have had greater reassurance about how clause 3 would have worked in practice. As they resisted that amendment, and the related amendments Nos. 55, 56 and 57 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), and did not allow the House to improve the clause, the Opposition are not prepared to trust the Government on the basis of their record to date. We continue to oppose the clause standing part of the Bill.