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European Union Bill

My Lords, I cannot recall an occasion yet when the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, and I have been in complete accord but we are this evening. I share the view that it is absolutely extraordinary that most of us should have stood by ready to start debating this Bill at 6 pm only to find that it has started, even with a few minutes’ intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, way past 8 pm. I do not believe that that is helpful to the government Front Bench, let alone to both parties opposite or, indeed, to us. I shall not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said at any length, because he made the point very forcefully. It is extremely hard to understand what is so pressing as to mean that we should discuss absolutely critical issues about constitutional arrangements between our Parliament and Europe on this type of timescale. We are shoe-horning it—that is the only way that I can describe it—into tiny pockets of time very late in the day with the prospect of holding debates extremely late at night, when we all know that proper justice is not done to the matters that we need to discuss. I take the Bill very seriously, just as the House took the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill seriously this afternoon. They are big constitutional issues by any standard. As I said, I take this Bill very seriously, although I have a very different view from that of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for example, on a number of its provisions. However, that is neither here nor there. We either take it seriously or we do not. I think that we are being asked to perform a serious job in a trivialised way and I cannot believe that the House will find that acceptable. I hope that the Front Bench opposite will have a credible answer and a credible timetable.