European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and was persuaded by his argument on trust and how the three parties put in their manifestos that there will be a referendum. But what was that referendum about? It was about a constitution and if you want to persuade me that the treaty is the same as a constitution you have to do better than simply say, ““The element of trust is important””. Of course trust is important. As a man of the cloth, I believe in trust; I believe in honesty and fairness. But let us put that trust in a context which is actually important, otherwise we are going to behave like that true story of an American warship that was found in Newfoundland, giving out a signal saying, ““Turn round, turn left, turn right””. It saw these big lights as it was moving forward. The message came back, ““You turn left””. It was thought that it had destroyers on board and it went on and on. Then finally, someone said, ““We can’t turn, we are a lighthouse””. You cannot simply go forward because you have the intention of being something—it is a question of content, context and reality. When I read manifestos I see that they are simply an expression of intention. That intention for them to be carried out often requires Acts of Parliament. The Government must be frustrated by their own manifesto because Parliament has said ““No””. Because we are living in a democratic institution which allows Parliament to be the high court of the land, it means that whatever intention anybody had, they are subject to its particular parliamentary democracy. I believe that parliamentary democracy is the answer. If you ask anybody if they want to vote on any subject, and we see this quite a lot in the Church of England, they do. But does that mean that that is always the right question? These manifesto commitments are subject to Parliament. The rule of this House is to revise legislation from the other place and improve on it. Would the six amendments improve the treaty? Would they improve the legislation which has come from the other place? I do not hear that. What I am hearing is, ““Delay it. Let’s go to the public””. That is not the way to improve legislation or revise it in this Chamber. The role of this House as a revising Chamber is going to be in a far worse position by simply saying, ““We are going to delay it because we want a referendum and because, by the way, all three parties had that in their manifestos””. The good thing is, as the law is passed, it always talks about the, "““advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons””," whereas the Lords Spiritual do not have it in their manifesto. I do not have to have to go for a referendum. I do not have to be persuaded because it was never in our House. But I need better arguments. I came to this country, running away from Amin’s troubles, in 1974. We had not been able to vote there for a long time. I came to this country because I was from the new Commonwealth and I was able to vote in all kinds of elections. The first election in which I took part was in a referendum in 1975. I read about, and understood, what I was being asked to vote on, and I voted ““Yes””. The problem is that if there is a referendum now, being one of the Lords Spiritual in this House, I no longer have a vote, so I ask not to be deprived of what I had lost in Uganda. Finally, if you ask whether the Queen will still be supreme in Parliament under the new treaty, will the answer be yes?