European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am aware of the last two points, but I was not aware of the first. I would like to check that before accepting the noble Lord’s word for it, because it would be pretty peculiar if that was what the Foreign Secretary said. I will certainly go away and look at that, but the points that the noble Lord has made do not undermine my argument in any way. My first point is that a constitutional arrangement is not the same as an institutional arrangement, an operational arrangement or defining competencies, all of which are clearly in this treaty. Even if you take the view that there is a constitutional impact, I would argue that it is no more than the constitutional impact of any treaty, because a treaty has an impact on sovereignty, as the noble Lord from the Liberal Democrat Benches described when he spoke earlier. It seems to me that we are setting a bizarre precedent in wanting to put these words in the Bill when most of us—obviously not the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, and probably not the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—do not believe that this treaty has anything like the constitutional impact of its predecessors. Why take this one and make a precedent now? There can be only one reason: it is because it is the bridge-head into the argument about the referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has been very clear on that point but I do not believe that his argument stands up. I think that I have an honest disagreement with him and we will debate that further, as we did at Second Reading. I do not think that the words ““lie”” or ““deceit”” are appropriate but the noble Lord will go on using them and I shall go on objecting.