I will not give way. I have given way twice and many other people want to speak.
The Bill is flawed in two respects. The first relates to votes at 16, to which a number of hon. Members have referred. The Bill is about the future of 16 and 17-year-olds. When I visit schools in the constituency, I talk to people about both the disadvantages and the benefits of being in the EU. At some point in the future, those young people may want to pursue careers that take them to other EU countries. Conservative Members may say that they could pursue careers in countries beyond the EU. That is true, but they have a certainty about their ability to pursue a career in EU countries that they do not have for countries such as the US, China and New Zealand, because they would be dependent on the conditions that those countries impose. I want 16 and 17-year-olds to have the opportunity to work in EU
countries, so I want them to be able to participate in a decision that will affect their future directly, possibly in a dramatic way. It could reduce their opportunities.
The Bill is also flawed in respect of votes for EU citizens. This is not the general election franchise. We know that it has been modified. It seems strange to me that a French, German or Italian citizen who has lived here, whose children were born here and who has paid taxes here, is not able to participate in something that could affect them and their children in a dramatic way.
I hope that it will be possible to address those two flaws. We will vote for the Bill on Second Reading, but we will seek to extend the franchise because, as the Foreign Secretary said, I do not like it when things are done to people, not for them.
3.44 pm
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): This referendum gives the British people the great opportunity to restore their precious but damaged democracy. For all too long, the British people have had to watch as successive Parliaments have given away their birthright by transferring important powers to the European Union. Big decisions have been taken away from the sovereignty of the British people and given to the bureaucracy of the European Union.
I believe in the sovereignty of the British people and I would like to help them restore it. Before we joined the European Economic Community, the sovereignty of the British people was clear and it worked well. The British people could elect a Parliament. The Parliament was sovereign until it had to face re-election. That meant that the Parliament was responsive to the British people between elections because those elected recognised that if they did not please, did not serve well—if the chosen Government did not govern wisely—they would be thrown out by the British people at the end of the five years. So the sovereignty of the British people required a sovereign Parliament that they could dismiss and they could influence, and much of the architecture of this building and the political architecture of our country was based on maximising the access to MPs and maximising the influence of MPs over the wider Government.