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Sittings of the House

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. I will not be led down the path of arguing the merits or otherwise of being in this horrendous European Union. It would be wrong of me to do that. However, he is quite right to point out the problem about the debate. He talked about the European Union Membership (Referendum) Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell). It is listed provisionally for Second Reading on 26 February. There is no problem with that, except for the fact that it is listed as motion 4 on that day and will never be reached. More interestingly, and to be non-party political, let us take another Bill as an example: the Lisbon Treaty (Referendum) Bill, which also has much merit and is promoted by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds). It is also listed on 26 February; it is motion 3. Again, that will not be debated, or at least is unlikely to be reached. Many issues are brought up by Members who want a debate rather than necessarily to get the law changed. They need time for the debates and on occasion the debates are embarrassing for those who sit on the Front Benches of the political parties. I dare say that the Lisbon Treaty (Referendum) Bill will certainly be embarrassing for the Government—