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Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I do not want to antagonise the Liberal Democrats too much. I am not in the business of laying traps for people, but the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that he was minded to support my new clause, and I hope that he will stand good on that when we go into the Lobby. Important questions arise that are not merely of an abstract nature. The House has a long history in this regard. Those who have studied constitutional law will remember Henry VIII and the Statute of Proclamations, the great Edward Coke, the achievement of the legislative supremacy of Parliament in 1688, following the final denouement of the Stuarts’ attempts to insist on the divine right of kings at the expense of the people of this country, and the assertion in the Bill of Rights in that year that decisions would be made by Parliament and not by the monarchy. Those issues are not dissimilar to the questions that arise in the context of the European Communities Act 1972.