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Mr. William Cash (Stone): The manifesto did not say what the constitution would contain.

Mr. Straw: I am sorry, but with great respect, the shadow Attorney-General, unusually for him—he gets

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things wrong, but he at least reads the text unlike his right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary—is saying that we never mentioned it. I am quoting directly from the Labour manifesto, a document branded on the hearts of all Conservatives because of the historic defeat that it produced. It said:

"Labour wants the next Inter-governmental Conference in 2004 to address public concerns about the way the EU works, spelling out in a clear statement of principles what should and should not be done at European level. Labour supports a stronger role for national parliaments in European affairs."

We have delivered that, and there was no suggestion—we knew that the IGC was coming—in our manifesto that we would go for a referendum, and we all know what the result was.

May I tell the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) that in other countries the view is that Britain did very well in respect of the negotiations? Le Monde said:

"The British government is pleased with the Convention and has every right to be so. The text meets virtually all its expectations and allays most of its fears".

Robert Badinter, one of the leading French constitutional experts said that, as a result of the way in which we operated, the constitution for the Europe of the 25 could now be dubbed "la britannique". It may also be helpful to know that when the text was becoming clear, one of the leading federalists, Giuliano Amato, was so sad that he said:

"I want to kill myself".

Mr. Bercow: Is that intellectually conclusive?

Mr. Straw: No, it is just suggestive of the fact that we did rather well in the Convention, and we hope to do even better in the IGC.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: May I appeal to the House for brief questions and, along with that, brief answers?

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall): May I urge my right hon. Friend to look again at the question of a referendum? I cannot believe that, deep down, he believes that the changes that the new constitution will bring about are not worthy of a referendum. Like me, he supported a referendum on Maastricht. A referendum would give us a stronger negotiating position and would mean that, if the people of this country wanted to be committed to the European Union, they would feel that they had the right to support it.

Mr. Straw: On a point of fact, I did not support a referendum on Maastricht. The record shows that I was against it and voted against a referendum. On the wider issues raised by my hon. Friend, I have already explained the Government's position. I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to look carefully at the text and the White Paper so that they can say where in the text, taken as a whole, there is a fundamental change in the wrong way in the nature of the relationship between member states and the European Union. I frankly think that they will find that very difficult.

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells): Why are the Government spinning the fantastic distortion that they

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have achieved most of their aims already except for a handful of issues that are still to be decided? Will the Foreign Secretary confirm to the House that, in the European Convention, the Government tabled over 200 amendments to the draft constitution? I have the list here. Only 11 were accepted, so what has happened the other 189 issues which the Government opposed? Why has the White Paper downgraded or, in most cases, dropped entirely any reference to all those other issues to which the Government objected? Will the Government drop this absurd strategy of fastening on a handful of red line issues on which they think that they can claim victory, ignoring all the other objections that they made in the Convention and which they are now carefully forgetting?

Mr. Straw: We are not forgetting other changes.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: They are not in the White Paper.

Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman is making an error in insinuating that the draft from the Convention is the final word—it is not.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The objections are not in the White Paper.

Mr. Straw: I am talking about the draft produced by the Convention. The Heads of Government at Thessaloniki said that it was a good basis for starting the negotiations. I am not going to anticipate what will happen at the IGC, but a great many amendments will be submitted by many member states. As for the right hon. Gentleman's arithmetic—I shall come back to him if am proved wrong—what often happens in negotiations is that one member state submits language and another member state submits similar language. He will remember—improbably, he was Minister for Europe—that, in the end, as a result of negotiation, language is agreed that is not necessarily the same as that originally submitted, but which is acceptable. I said in my opening statement that there are other areas, which, I am sure, were covered by some of those 200 amendments, that require technical improvements. There are other issues, too, that we intend to raise in the negotiations.

Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston): The Foreign Secretary helpfully said that one area on which the Government will insist on unanimity is future treaty changes. In that context, can he help me with what seems to be more than just a linguistic inconsistency? The Command Paper talks about the draft constitution treaty for the European Union and a clear treaty structure. The document that the Convention handed over to the Heads of Government at Thessaloniki referred to a

"draft treaty establishing a constitution for Europe".

Most of the people who wrote that—I am not one of them—were quite clear that they wished to move away from the treaty structure and establish an independent constitutional structure, which would mean that there

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would be no future treaty ratifications. If the Government are committed to treaties, what will they do to ensure that a treaty structure remains?

Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend makes an important point. This is, in our judgement, a draft constitutional treaty and I have just spotted the fact that that is included on the cover, as provided by the European Convention to which my hon. Friend referred. We are clear that the basis of the European Union must be a treaty basis, and that is why I have spelt out today the fact that we have to keep the veto and proper processes for any treaty changes.

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): Just before he rose to speak, the Foreign Secretary heard the Deputy Leader of the House assert the sovereignty of the House. That is only meaningful in the democratic age, as Winston Churchill said, as a shorthand for the sovereignty of the people. The Foreign Secretary prayed in aid a referendum that took place over a quarter of a century ago on a very different proposition from that facing the British people and the House today. It is not good enough, and everyone knows that it is not. Maastricht purported to establish things that were irrevocable and irreversible, and they will be included in the constitution. It is therefore imperative that the sovereign people of this country should have the right to judge whether the measures that have been taken in their name in recent years are what they want.

Mr. Straw: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point. I was praying in aid the distinction between a referendum on whether to join or leave the European Union and the proposition for a referendum on a constitutional treaty such as this, and saying what that distinction was. In arguing against a referendum, I was praying in aid the precedent of the previous Government—I know that he did not agree with it, but most members of the then shadow Cabinet did so—in deciding against holding a referendum either on the Single European Act 1986, which made profound changes and introduced qualified majority voting, or on Maastricht. I happen to think that that was the right approach and I am surprised that, without any good basis at all, some Opposition Front Benchers have now changed their minds.

Donald Anderson (Swansea, East): Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the vision set out eloquently by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) is shared by no other country, whether by an existing or accession member of the Union, and that the logic of his shopping list is therefore that of withdrawal?

In terms of parliamentary accountability, especially for common foreign and security policy and European security and defence policy, what mechanism would my right hon. Friend devise to ensure such accountability beyond Select Committees, the Floor of this House and the new Committee, at an all-European level, including both national Parliaments and the European Parliament? Finally, as the accession of 10 new countries is such a grand thing to celebrate, how does he propose that we in Britain celebrate enlargement next May?

Mr. Straw: My right hon. Friend referred to a vision, but I would say that the right hon. Member for Devizes

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(Mr. Ancram) has a fantasy about Europe that is not shared by any other country. Indeed, were the Conservatives suddenly to find themselves in government, they would betray Britain's interest and undermine the basis of its prosperity with their current approach. The simple truth of the matter is that the strategy set out by the leader of the Conservative party is, step by step, to put the United Kingdom in a position in which it has to leave the European Union. Indeed, that is what he has often talked about.

My right hon. Friend made some points about common foreign and security policy—

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