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Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty) (No. 8)

The Government must think again. There is no doubt that there is much in the Lisbon treaty to debate; there is no doubt that we have not debated it; and there is also no doubt that Oppositions always make that claim, but on this occasion the claim has very serious truth in it. The Government promised us line-by-line scrutiny but they have not given us the same length of time as the previous Conservative Government gave the debate on Maastricht. They have made debate difficult with their novel procedure and they have wrongly accused my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) of going along with that procedure when he manifestly did not. They have upset their own supporters, who see that the motion is utterly unfair, and have made Conservative Members who believe in the treaty of Lisbon extremely angry about the process that they have introduced. I hope very much that they will withdraw the motion.