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Mr. Dismore: Would it not be far better for the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) simply to withdraw the Bill, get it in order and perhaps try to secure a further ten-minute rule slot? In Committee on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, I remember the Opposition jumping up and down and protesting about changes to the very nature of the Bill, which meant that it had to be withdrawn, redrafted and have a second Committee stage. Would it not be far better for the hon. Gentleman simply to withdraw the Bill and start again?

David Cairns: I fear that my hon. Friend is correct, and I have mentioned only two of the flaws; I have yet to reach the meat of the Bill. It has many other flaws.

Walking towards King's Cross tube station coming into the House today, I saw a huge poster saying "Kill Bill". I thought that the Labour Whips had generated such a magnificent operation that every Member of Parliament making their way to the Commons today would get the message to kill the Bill. However, I have been told by those more culturally aware than I am that it is the name of a film. It is not my intention to kill the Bill, but to vote against it because of its flawed nature.

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon tries to make his case by attacking the constitution, on some elements of which I would agree, and inventing other reasons for attacking the constitution and for voting no, irrespective of what is in the treaty. His case was about as credible as Kevin Spacey. [Interruption.] At least my references are contemporary. At Prime Minister's questions this week the Leader of the Opposition referred to the words "Help me, Rhondda. Help, help me Rhondda." I had to have that explained to me because I am far too young to know what he was talking about. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) is an Elvis Presley fan and a Beach Boys fan, too. I did not know that song and I had to have the reference explained to me, as did other youngsters here.

Mr. Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op): As my hon. Friend rightly points out, the Bill needs detailed scrutiny—it affects the whole of the United Kingdom. More than half the Government Members present represent Scottish constituencies, and I see that the Liberal Democrats are represented 100 per cent. by Members from Scottish constituencies. What does my hon. Friend say about the absence from the
 
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Chamber of any Scottish National party Members, who advocate a referendum in Scotland but are not here today—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Not only is that a very long intervention, but it is totally irrelevant to the debate.

David Cairns: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course I shall not stray down that path, other than to say that the Bill that was considered earlier would also apply throughout the United Kingdom, as would the Bill that is scheduled to be debated after this one. Three United Kingdom-wide Bills have been scheduled for debate this morning, so my hon. Friend has made his point very well.

Mr. Dismore: Would my hon. Friend care to explain the example that he cited earlier, for the benefit of those who did not understand it? I congratulate him on making a contemporary reference, when the best references that we heard from the Opposition were to 1860 and the American civil war.

David Cairns: Now my hon. Friend really is pre-empting my speech, as I have some thoughts about the civil war. I might not be a great constitutional expert, but I happen to know a wee bit about the American civil war and the experiences that led up to the secession of the south. That period is directly relevant to our discussion. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon spoke about it at length, and he will be delighted to hear that I will say more about it anon.

The first flaws in the Bill have already been mentioned in passing, but they require further reflection. Clause 1(2) states:

"A referendum shall be held within six months of the adoption of the Treaty."

We are entitled to ask what adoption of the treaty means. The term "adoption" is not common in respect of European treaties, which are not spoken of as adopted. They can be agreed, ratified, signed and endorsed by Parliament, but not adopted. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon is therefore including in the Bill a brand-new term. It might be the correct term and precisely the one that we need in this case, but we would need to examine the implications for future treaties and consequent Acts of introducing that new legal term into the corpus of our domestic law. He admitted that the term is not commonly used in this context and had to define it, and it would be unwise to proceed with the Bill while it remains. He might say "Okay, we'll amend the Bill in Committee", but that brings me back to my original point: it is not acceptable to bring a Bill to the House for its Second Reading having had quite a while to prepare it, and then immediately say that we can amend it in Committee. That is not a good way of making laws. If we had 5p for every time we heard the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst make precisely that point—I am indebted to him for drawing it to my attention—we would all be considerably better off.

Mr. Maples: I explained what the word "adoption" means. It is a term of art and I checked it with the Clerks. Furthermore, this Bill is, word for word, exactly the Bill
 
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that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) introduced in the previous Session. I shall draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to Hansard and to the hon. Gentleman's criticisms of the drafting.

David Cairns: I have enormous respect and admiration for my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), but there are many things on which I firmly disagree with him. If he were present, I would tell him so to his face, but perhaps he is visiting a school or something. As he is not present, I do not think that we should discuss his views in any great depth.

Mr. Dismore: Perhaps the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) would like the House to start adopting Bills. In the context of his own Bill, perhaps he is asking us to take on a somewhat unwanted orphan. Perhaps that is what he means by "adoption".

David Cairns: That may well be the case, which illustrates the problem: as the term is not usually used in such a context, it is open to various interpretations. Frankly, such a situation is not good enough when we are passing laws. We will not adopt the Bill, foster it or take it into care; we will vote either for it or against it on the basis of what it contains. Such loose language is not acceptable, which is why the Bill should not be given its Second Reading.

Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for being away from the Chamber while I gave in to the temptation to have a bit of lunch.

The Bill says that a referendum should be held "within six months", and a great deal was made of the need to proceed swiftly. Does my hon. Friend have views about how soon after a treaty is adopted or ratified, or whatever the correct term is, we could try to hold a referendum?

David Cairns: It is not so much how many months, but whether the Bill can be given adequate parliamentary scrutiny. That is what is at stake, not whether we set up an artificial guillotine or time frame. We need to get a treaty that is acceptable to the UK and recognises our red-line issues; in other words, one that does not encroach on the UK's veto powers on central issues and does not take over our foreign policy or our policy on defence, taxation, immigration and so on. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon referred to many of those matters during his speech.

If we can secure a treaty that we agree with, it must then be formally written up and signed, which could take months. As with the treaty of Nice, a Bill has to be published and introduced, and parliamentary time has to be set aside for scrutinising it in both Houses. Then, and only then, can we consider having a referendum. In other words, the timetable leading up to a referendum will be dictated by the process of parliamentary scrutiny—and we would have to ensure that the treaty received the closest possible scrutiny—and could not be arbitrarily set at six months.

Can you imagine, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what would happen if we were trying to stick to a timetable but there was a delay in the signing ceremony? There would then
 
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be a delay in bringing the Bill to the House, and midway through our debate or perhaps even before it had started we would have to have a referendum simply because we were adhering to a timetable that had been plucked out of the sky and included in this flawed Bill. My approach, then, is to think in terms not of weeks or months but of the process of parliamentary scrutiny.

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