European Union (Amendment) Bill

If your Lordships settle for that bargain, I shall do so as well. I shall quote from the excellent report of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. It states in its conclusion, which is in heavy black type, that part of the TFEU treaty will, "““inevitably have constitutional implications. In practice, much will depend on how the Government choose to exercise the opt-ins they have negotiated. We conclude that the importance of how the opt-ins and opt-outs are used is such that Parliament must be fully involved in their use””." It also quotes with approval one of its witnesses, who, talking about the changes to the TFEU, said that the reform clearly implied ““fundamental constitutional change””. Those statements are in black and white, so the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, is quite wrong in saying that none of the reports from your Lordships’ House supports us or that their conclusions are the opposite of what we are saying: they are right in line with what we are saying. They are right in line with the fact that there is a constitutional significance which merits a change in the wording about constitutional arrangements in the terms which we have set out. That is a matter on which we will probably not agree, but at least let us have the facts either side aligned; they cannot be gainsaid. Of course the amendment was intended to be a rather narrow point; we were trying simply to bring home the observation, or the improvement, to make the Bill rather more honest goods, and state more clearly what it is about. Inevitably, the debate went wider. Neither I nor the noble Baroness can control how a debate goes—thank goodness—in your Lordships' House, and we wandered off into wider things. I very much agree with the noble Lords, Lord Williamson and Lord Willoughby, who both reminded us not to become too loaded with jargon and insider’s talk. To many people, the very word ““constitution””—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, was on to the same point—is strange. For many people, it refers to body-building exercises at a health club on a Friday evening or, for some, a doctor’s term in a medical remedy. So we have to be very careful to adopt the right language in our debates. However, we were making a narrow point. Some speakers chose to go very much wider, and we drifted off into the referendum issue, which we shall debate later. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock—his very voice brought back memories of past battles—who asked where we stop with referenda. I shall simply leave him with the question whether he put that question to the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. If so, what was the answer? I shall be fascinated to learn at some stage what it was, because it was the former Prime Minister who recommended a referendum.