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Mr. Lazarowicz: Is there not another possibility that we should consider? What if, as a result of negotiations, the Conservatives did a U-turn and were no longer against a constitutional treaty? If there were unanimity among the major political forces in the country, there might not be a case for a referendum at that time. There might be a case for a referendum at some future date, but it would be premature to assume that the political position in the House would be the same a few months later.

David Cairns: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. I slightly disagree with him because I am wedded to the notion of a referendum. I believe that that is the right policy, and I can foresee no circumstances in which we would not have a referendum, unless the constitutional treaty had already been killed off by a series of "no" votes elsewhere and the whole process had ground to a halt. Even in those circumstances, however, we might still go ahead with a referendum. Although I hear what my hon. Friend says, and we should not prejudge what will happen in the months ahead, I am firmly convinced that the policy of committing the matter to a referendum is right, and I look forward to that happening.

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend has highlighted the issue of the six months, which start from the date of adoption, although we do not know what that means. Of course, we do not know when the Bill itself will come into force, because yet another of its flaws is the fact that it contains no commencement provisions. I should have thought that one way round that issue would be to insert a commencement clause at the end. Will my hon. Friend give us his views on that?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend never ceases to amaze me. I studied the Bill in depth in preparation for today's debate, and I thought that I had picked out all its flaws, but I missed that very glaring one. I can therefore forgive the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon for making that mistake. Is not this an example of parliamentary scrutiny at its very best? Hon. Members can study a measure in detail and point out its flaws.

The same will happen when we scrutinise any constitutional treaty laid before the House as a Command Paper. However, the Conservatives do not want us to do any of that; they want the treaty to go straight to a referendum before it has even received parliamentary scrutiny. The intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) brilliantly highlights why our policy of scrutinising a treaty in the House before a referendum is correct. The official policy of Opposition Front Benchers, which is to have the referendum before we even have the treaty, is flawed, and the policy of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon, which nuances that by saying that we should
 
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have a referendum six months after the treaty's adoption, whatever that means, is equally flawed for the reasons that my hon. Friend just gave.

Mr. Dismore: Let us suppose that adoption means agreement in principle in June. Bearing in mind the parliamentary timetable, the six months for which the Bill provides could expire before the Bill comes into force.

David Cairns: That is yet another flaw in the Bill and another reason why even those of us who are wedded to the idea of a referendum cannot support it.

My next problem with the Bill concerns the question that will be asked in the referendum.

Mr. Dismore: I am sorry to keep pursuing this point, but the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon looks bemused by my last intervention, and I should perhaps explain what I mean. Let us suppose that the Bill passed through to Committee today. It would then have to come back on Report, which I envisage would not happen much before June, and go to the other place. The prospect of its completing its parliamentary passage much before the spillover Session is pretty limited. As there is no commencement date, it would come into force three months later, by which time six months would already be up.

David Cairns: We would have to have a retrospective referendum of some kind. My hon. Friend is deep into the realms of metaphysics, but I think that I follow him. The Bill would come into force more than six months after the treaty had been adopted, so we could not have the referendum laid by down by the timetable in the Bill because six months would already have lapsed. I am glad that he clarified that, because I did not quite get it the first time round either.

Ms Munn: Neither did I.

David Cairns: Now that my hon. Friend has confessed, I do not feel uniquely stupid.

Mr. Maples: Are the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) suggesting that the Government would delay the Bill to that extent? Otherwise, it could go through Parliament very quickly, as all hon. Members appear to be in favour of the principle.

David Cairns: I am in favour not of the principle of the Bill, but the principle of referendums. The hon. Gentleman has consistently conflated the two—

Mr. Dismore: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is clamouring for me to give way, but I will just finish this point. The hon. Gentleman has consistently conflated the two notions to suggest that if one loves good and hates evil one must support this Bill, but that does not follow. I support the idea of a referendum following the successful completion of negotiations and the securing of a treaty that respects the British red lines. Given the involvement
 
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in those negotiations of my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade and Investment, who is on the Front Bench, I have every confidence that the Government will secure such a treaty.

Following that—we do not know whether it will be during the summer or later than that—we must subject the treaty to parliamentary scrutiny. That process will take a few months. I have no idea how long the passage of the Bill would last, but, given its many flaws, including his failure to specify a commencement date, I would expect it to have to spend quite a while in Committee. He has already said that he would table a couple of amendments, and we have not yet got through Second Reading. It is not a question of padding it out; it would take such a long time to rectify its flaws that the bizarre parallel time line outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon is plausible.

Ms Munn: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Gentleman's great haste to rush to a referendum is about ensuring that the people of Britain do not have the opportunity properly to examine and understand the constitution, which would be more likely lead to a no vote than a proper discussion in this Parliament and in the country on the important issues that it contains?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is being uncharacteristically unkind to the hon. Gentleman. I think that he genuinely has concerns about the constitutional treaty—as do I, as do the Government, and as does my hon. Friend, I am sure—but the arbitrary nature of the timetable that he sets out and the difficulties that I envisage, which have been complicated further by the forensic insight of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, mean that the Bill cannot be allowed to continue.

I want to speak about the issues that we must tackle before the constitution is put to a referendum. Parliament must be at the heart of dealing with those matters. One cannot simply pluck an arbitrary period, for example six months, out of thin air, include it in the Bill and tell people, "If you oppose the Bill, you oppose a referendum and you don't want the people to have their say. If you oppose the Bill, you want a European superstate, straight bananas, people driving on the right-hand side of the road" and all the usual nonsense. I support a referendum but I oppose the Bill.

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Perhaps I can help him a little with the previous intervention by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). I assume that he did not consult the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) before he made it. If he had done so and was a more regular attender on Fridays, he would know that a private Member's Bill has a timetable and a specific date is set for it. That means that he should take his turn in the queue with everybody else. If he was genuinely worried about enacting his Bill in time, he would have set a commencement date—either on Royal Assent or within a month of Royal Assent—that would have enabled his timetable, such as it is, to be fulfilled. That shows how badly drafted the Bill is.
 
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David Cairns: My hon. Friend amplifies the point that he made earlier with great clarity. There was a vote on the young cyclists helmets Bill—it was called something like that—

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