Pharmacy First

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

I am always happy to speak to colleagues on both sides of the House about their ideas for new dental and pharmacy schools. It is an ongoing interest.

England is, in fact, blessed with huge numbers of community pharmacies—well over 10,000—and four in five of us are able to walk to a community pharmacy within 20 minutes. The number of pharmacies in more deprived areas is double the number in more well-off areas. We are very well served by our brilliant pharmacies, and I hope the Pharmacy First programme will improve their footfall and their value in each of our communities.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I very much welcome this initiative to encourage our pharmacies to provide more frontline healthcare. People need to know about this, because they often do not think of going to the pharmacy. What work are the Government doing in larger population centres such as Harwich and Dovercourt, which has over 20,000 people but no out-of-hours pharmacy cover? People have to make a round trip of more than 40 miles to collect a prescription on a Sunday, for example. Are the Government doing any work on 24/7 pharmacy coverage for larger population areas?

[Dame Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Pharmacists will keep their community pharmacy open for up to 72 hours a week in most cases, and up to 100 hours in some cases, which means there is weekend accessibility. We keep this under review, but the availability is very good.

ICGS Investigations: Commons-Lords Agreement

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will just speak very briefly to this matter. The Chair of the Standards Committee sends his apologies. He has had to take a close relative to hospital today. I am standing in for him, although I take responsibility for my own words.

The Standards Committee has co-operated constructively with its sister Committee, the Lords’ Conduct Committee, chaired by the noble Lord Mance, to develop an arrangement to address a loophole. As a member of the Committee on Standards, I support the motion to approve our Committee’s report. The report deals with what one might describe as an item of unfinished business arising from the House’s creation of the independent complaints and grievance scheme that we have just been discussing. The scheme was put together very rapidly, because the House rightly wished to demonstrate to the wider public that we take allegations of bullying and harassment within the parliamentary community extremely seriously, and it was acknowledged at the time that the scheme would need revision in the light of experience and that there were gaps or lacunae in the scheme that needed to be filled. One of those gaps was the lack of any arrangement between this House and the other place as to how allegations against ex-Members of one House would be proceeded with if they became Members of the other House.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Just to put the record completely straight, the working group—Members who sat on that group are in the Chamber today—was very clear that the two schemes should be aligned between this House and the House of Lords. However, due to a very unfortunate investigation that took place in the House of Lords under the previous system, it was felt that the ICGS could not be implemented in that House at that time. That is why this anomaly has sprung up. I would also like to raise the important point that, as things stand with the ICGS having been working for some time, its findings are just too slow. There have been live instances where individuals who have been Members of this place are being considered for membership of the other place when potential complaints against them are still pending in this place. It is not clear to me that the Standards Committee’s report deals with that circumstance.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I will certainly take back to the Committee what my right hon. Friend is saying, and if we need to make a further amendment to the arrangements, we should do so. As things stand, however, former MPs who are now in the other place cannot be investigated under the ICGS for behaviour that is alleged to have taken place while they were MPs.

After our discussions with Lord Mance and the Lords’ Conduct Committee, and with the two Houses’ Commissioners also working closely together on this, the arrangement that we now propose is set out in an appendix to the Standards Committee report. It proposes that ex-MPs now in the other place should be investigated under the Commons procedures involving independent investigators, the Commissioner and, if necessary, the new independent expert panel that the House has just nominated. If that does not satisfy my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), could she put on record why it does not do so?

If an ex-MP who is now in the other place is found to have breached the behaviour code, this House will not be involved in sanctioning them. Instead, the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards will recommend a sanction and the Lords’ Conduct Committee would hear any appeal against that sanction. The full House of Lords would decide on imposing a serious sanction, such as suspension or expulsion, but the important point is that the investigation and the findings would be done under our system in this House, and the House of Lords has agreed to that.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I do not want to detain the House, but this is a really important issue and my hon. Friend asked me to put my views on record. This relates specifically to when someone who has been a Member of this House and has outstanding complaints against them is under consideration for being offered a position in the other place by the House of Lords Committee, which is not privy to the existence of the ongoing complaints about them in this place under the ICGS.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I think that would be a matter more for the Lords Appointments Commission or the vetting procedures—

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, it is.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

That does not fall under our remit at all, but in recent cases that I can think of, an estoppel has been put on possible elevations to the other place of Members who are under suspicion or where there has been controversy. Obviously, if it was an entirely secret and non-disclosable allegation that had not found its way into the public sphere, we would need to check that there would be a procedure for that. However, that is a separate matter from whether a complaint is going to be investigated and adjudicated by the ICGS.

We have also addressed the complementary problem. There are not many Members of the other place who choose to renounce their peerages and seek election to the House of Commons, but this can and does occasionally happen. The Committee therefore recommends that the new arrangements should be reciprocal. Allegations against an ex-peer who might then be in the Commons would be investigated under the procedures of the other place, but any sanction would be carried out within this House.

The Lords Conduct Committee has agreed a report in very similar terms to our own, and this has been approved in the other place. I urge this House to do likewise and approve these sensible arrangements, which are necessary to block off this lack of redress in our measures for tackling bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct by our Members and ex-Members.

Business of the House

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is a genuine expert in procedure and how best to improve a Bill, and he is right; there is no time for any of the usual niceties.

As Members will know, my job as Leader of the House is to ensure, before introducing any Government legislation, that it has been considered carefully from all angles by the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, which I chair. It is also my job to ensure that legislation is given adequate time for scrutiny and consideration by the House.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Traditionally, when legislation is rushed through this House, the other place gives consideration that has not been given. What measures will the Government take to ensure that there is proper and detailed consideration of the Bill in the other place?

[Andrea Leadsom]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, it will be a matter for the other place, and the Government will have no involvement in that whatsoever, so I am afraid that I am unable to answer that question.

Bullying and Harassment: Cox Report

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about changing the management of the House and not just the processes. I will come on to that, if he will bear with me, but I want to first finish talking about what is currently available, because it is incredibly important for all those who want to come forward with a complaint.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The point raised by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is a very salient one. We spend an awful lot of time looking at processes and procedures, writing down codes and adjusting rules, and very little time thinking about how we change the culture. It is not about the management of this place; it is about every single right hon. and hon. Member in this House. We lead this place, and we set the example and the tone. The question is how we want the governance of this place to change the culture, and that falls on us, not on some obscure committee elsewhere to take that responsibility away from us.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I will come on to governance issues, but I would like to finish talking about the processes that we have put in place since July this summer.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady. She has, over decades, shown her commitment to equality, fairness and justice in this place. I am glad to hear that she is pleased with the work we have put to paper. I assure her that I am committed to seeing this through, as I know are other members of the working group. It is absolutely our intention to put the complainant at the heart of everything we do. She is exactly right. I have heard separately from a number of people who have come to me with their concerns, knowing I was involved in this process. Often, those complainants’ stories have got into the media, and they have been hounded. That is a terrible situation for them to find themselves in, and we are determined that the new procedure will address that.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and the working group for producing a far-reaching and radical document that I hope the House and the other place will proceed with implementing, as they intend to. The report talks about a behaviour code for the whole of Parliament, which is a very comprehensive change. It also talks about a culture change in paragraph 82 and training. That underlines the shortcomings that the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs has advertised exist in our code of conduct, and the report requires changes to the House of Commons code of conduct.

I particularly commend the intention to set up a review body once all this is implemented. If I read the report correctly, that might be a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament, perhaps including lay members. Ultimately there has to be comprehensive oversight of this change and how it integrates with what we already have.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, for his Committee’s contribution. It made a very useful written submission with recommendations on the establishment of a joint committee, with staff representation, to review the workings once this system is up and running. I am very sympathetic to that idea, and the report indicates that we would like to see such a review take place once the new system has been up and running for six months. The behaviour code for all in Parliament, including visitors to this place, is designed to sit alongside existing codes and not to interrupt them. I look forward to working with him in consulting on the behaviour code.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will just continue for a moment.

If the second motion is carried today, the final recommendation, fully costed, of the sponsor board and delivery authority will come back to this House in 12 to 18 months for a vote. Following that vote, the House-approved business case would immediately progress to the design phase.

The Palace of Westminster will, in all cases, remain the home of our Parliament. That has always been the plan. To make it absolutely clear to all hon. and right hon. Members, full or partial decant will not take place until 2025 at the earliest.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The Leader of the House is completely right that we do not yet have anything like enough information to evaluate which option the House should now pursue. I was predisposed to support the decant proposal, but I regret to tell the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), that I took my name off her amendment, having done some preparation for this debate. I do not think we begin to have the information, but setting up the delivery authority is a no-brainer for a project of this scale and nature.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The need for action is absolutely vital. Each of the motions provides that opportunity, but it is vital that the House itself makes the decision.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Policy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for also making a mistake.

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. I agree that whatever needs to be done urgently must be done urgently to address the present situation, but as we graft more and more new bits on to current systems, will we not be in danger of adding to the confusion that already exists? The Public Affairs and Constitutional Administration Committee, which I chair, has submitted evidence to the review of our present code of conduct, which is being conducted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Much of the current problem arises from confusion about an inadequacy in the code.

As my right hon. Friend develops her proposals, will she agree that whatever is put in place now, there needs to be a comprehensive assessment in the longer term—perhaps by a special Select Committee such as the House of Commons Governance Committee, which was formed during the last Parliament—of what is being introduced and how it should integrate with IPSA, the Standards and Privileges Committees and so on?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his Committee’s work on this issue, and for keeping me up to date with its investigations and reports.

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend that there is not intended to be any confusion about the outcome of the working group’s activities. We aim to create an independent complaints and grievances procedure that will be run within the House, using as a reference point the work that has already been done here, as well as the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and, potentially, support from existing organisations in the House. We intend to end up with the independent helpline, which will continue to provide immediate guidance and signposting, and an independent grievance procedure that will enable action to be taken against Members, staff, peers and so on. In addition, however, there will always continue to be the parties’ own complaints procedures. There will not be a mixture of those different processes; they will be separate, and very clearly set out. I hope I can reassure all Members on both sides of the House that there will be extreme clarity about how individuals can express their grievances.

Sexual Harassment in Parliament

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am very happy to give that absolute assurance. There should be no place here on the estate, or in our constituency offices, where people can be abused or their allegations not taken seriously. I can assure the hon. Lady that I will be meeting Lord McFall to discuss the specific issues around the Sports and Social bar tomorrow.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Thank you for your statement, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for the consensus so far in all the statements made and questions raised in these exchanges. Let me point out that we would not be having these exchanges if the document I have here—the code of conduct of the House of Commons—was actually working and the machinery around the code was effective. May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is conducting a review of the code of conduct? The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has submitted quite radical suggestions about how the code, and the machinery around it, should be reformed so that we spend far more time in this House as Members of Parliament experiencing proper professional development and understanding the code of values at the front of this document—what they actually mean and how we should live those values as Members of Parliament—than just concentrating on all the other pages, which are about declarations of outside earnings, Members’ interests and all the other stuff that seems to preoccupy the regulatory authorities of this House.

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is already a code of conduct. I am grateful to him for sending me his Committee’s report on this matter over the weekend. I will certainly look at it carefully over the next couple of days.

Banking Union and Economic and Monetary Union

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

In some respects, this is a modest debate compared with last week’s, although it is worth reflecting that employment in the City, as reported by City AM, has collapsed by more than 100,000 since the peak of 2007. Some of that was self-inflicted, but much of it was inflicted by increased regulation. The Centre for Economic and Business Research reports that employment in the City is set to fall much lower. Most of the jobs are highly paid, high-taxpaying jobs, on which the economy in general and the economy of London and the south-east in particular depend very deeply.

I commend the sincerity of my right hon. Friend the Minister’s approach. He is in a difficult position. The difficulties he is confronting are a microcosm of the conundrum of the UK’s place in the EU. We are not in the room, so we cannot function as a positively engaged member of the EU on our current terms of membership, but we are also not negotiating the alternative terms of membership that would protect us from the effects of the treaties we have already signed.

It needs to be pointed out that banking union simply was not envisaged in the Lisbon treaty. We now find ourselves confronted with a new institution and a reform that simply was not regarded as necessary when the Lisbon treaty and its predecessors were signed. The treaty is not fit for purpose for a banking union.

The problem is that no arrangements that nibble at those problems will protect the UK’s interests—a wholesale change in our relationship is the only way to protect them. Sadly, the motion represents the Government yet again passing up a substantial opportunity to start laying the foundations of a different relationship and to start leveraging the renegotiation of our terms of membership. That is a matter of great significance.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I give way to my hon. Friend, who made a very able speech.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I have to challenge him, because I think that the Government are absolutely committed to renegotiating. Why does he think that they are not?

[Mr Jenkin]

Unfortunately, our party’s leadership does not intend to start substantive renegotiation of our relationship until after 2015, long after this particular opportunity will have passed us by. If we attempt to remediate this measure and its effects on our interests, we will not succeed. This is happening in case after case—the fiscal union treaty is another example.

European Council

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Thursday 8th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and to find myself agreeing with him yet again—we also agree on high-speed rail. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) for his history lesson. I confess that I am one of those economists who tends to look at things from an economic perspective, rather than an historical one.

What concerns me about the latest proposals for eurozone crisis prevention measures is that they simply will not work. It boils down to the fact that what makes the difference between sovereign risk and credit risk is the undoubtedness of sovereign debt, backed by a lender of last resort. In the end, if a country is a sovereign risk, its lender of last resort can print money, its currency can devalue and it can get out of its difficulties that way. The eurozone has as yet failed to address that fundamental issue, and the measures that it now proposes mean nothing more than ever-greater fiscal integration, but without the ability to issue proper sovereign debt. Market chaos will therefore not cease for longer than the short term.

[Mr Jenkin]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, even if the European Central Bank was turned into a fully fledged sovereign central bank and printed unlimited sums, it might provide liquidity and buy some space for a while, but the fundamental structural problems between the different economies stuck in the eurozone would not be addressed? Austerity packages would still need to be applied, but the EU’s institutions do not have the democratic legitimacy to impose austerity on countries in that way.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, I agree. The key issue is that if these countries are to have sovereign risk, they must completely guarantee and underwrite each other’s debt and obligations. That is very unlikely ever to be achieved in the EU, which just makes the problem of not having a lender of last resort even more existential for the eurozone. I therefore have genuine concerns about whether the proposals actually offer a solution.

Here we are on the eve of a very important summit, which is designed, on the face of it at least, to put the market’s fears to bed once and for all. The Prime Minister has a strong hand, because the German Chancellor and the French President need a treaty at the 27 member state level, for two practical reasons. First, if they started again, with just the 17 eurozone members trying to create a treaty between themselves, they simply could not do that in the time frame that the markets would permit them. That is a very practical issue, which they need to consider. Under the Lisbon treaty, however, treaty changes can be fast-tracked. Secondly, as was pointed out earlier, the 17, as a group, could not simply annex the EU institutions and use them for themselves; they would require the permission of the 27 EU members. For both those reasons, a treaty is needed at the 27 member state level, and that makes the Prime Minister’s hand very strong.

Like other Members, I am pleased that the Prime Minister is absolutely determined to protect Britain’s interests. What does that mean? First and foremost for every EU member, regardless of whether it is in or out of the euro, that must be about stopping the crisis—there is no doubt about that. If the euro descends into a disorderly collapse, that will easily cost 6% or 7% of British GDP, and it would probably push us into a worse recession than the one after the financial crisis of 2008. There is therefore no doubt that our top priority should be to solve the eurozone crisis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Leadsom]

We will just have to agree to disagree. If people are in government, they govern. At the current moment, a referendum would be extraordinarily important in the history of Britain, but it would be extraordinarily difficult to get the sort of answer that would give the Government a coherent direction. It is for the Government to make the best decision at this moment. For what it is worth, I have always thought that a referendum needs to come at the tail end of a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the euro and that it should be used to ratify such a renegotiation, based on the simple question of whether Britain should be in or out of the EU on the basis of a pre-negotiated set of terms with the EU.

[Mr Jenkin]

I could accept that approach, and my hon. Friend has answered her own question about what the referendum question could be. We will not agree the treaty texts at the summit; the meeting will discuss issues of principle and the treaties will then be drafted, but their ratification will take months if not years. We are talking about a referendum some time during that period to ratify a new deal for Britain. Does my hon. Friend not think that that would be a sensible way to go? Would it not strengthen our Prime Minister’s hand if he was to put that view to those at the meeting this weekend?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am perhaps not understanding. The calls that I have seen in the media are all about our needing a referendum, but now is not the moment for one.

[Mr Jenkin]

If I may say so, my hon. Friend has seen a bit too much of the Government’s propaganda, rather than heard what some of us have been saying. We cannot, of course, ask for a referendum on the spur of the moment; we are asking for a referendum on renegotiated terms of membership, which we desperately need and which this summit demonstrates that we will need. We should be able to tell our European partners, “Go ahead with your proposals for fiscal union. We don’t think they’ll work. It’s a big change for us, so we need these measures in return. As part of the ratification process, we will put this to the British people and recommend a yes vote, as long as you agree our terms.”

[Andrea Leadsom]

I thank my hon. Friend. In truth, right now, I genuinely believe that the Prime Minister has to focus his effort on creating the best solution for Britain, and that is what he is doing. As for all the demands for referendums, the fact that I am confused about what my hon. Friend has been saying, although I am quite close to these issues, demonstrates that other people will doubtless also be confused. The demands are seen as our party, at least, trying to cause trouble for the Prime Minister. For that reason alone, now is the time to get behind the Prime Minister, who has promised the British people that he will defend our interests.

Let me come to why defending the City is the key priority at the moment. People talk about renegotiating EU directives that have already been implemented, but as we have found as part of the Fresh Start project work, that is real spaghetti; it is extraordinarily difficult to unwind existing, implemented policies. I am a very practical person, and the best approach in terms of doability is to look at what has not yet been implemented and what the biggest threat to Britain is. On those two counts, there is no doubt that we should focus on financial services.

Financial services account for 11% of Britain’s tax take each year—about £50 billion. It employs nearly 2 million people; it is our biggest export; and it creates a huge positive trade surplus. Given that we have a big overall trade deficit, we would be looking at a far worse trade balance without financial services. Added to that is the fact that the potential for the future growth of financial services is all outside the eurozone; it is in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—and America and Asia. That is where the potential lies. Yet, before the financial crisis, Britain was in a strong position in creating an EU financial services single market. We were influential. That was all about deregulation, open access to markets, growth and jobs. Britain did very well out of that and so, by the way, did the rest of Europe. Other eurozone countries did extraordinarily well, because the City was the entry-point to European financial services markets. That benefited us all.

Since the financial crisis, however, the agenda has changed. Britain has rightly changed its regulatory environment by greatly increasing controls, the closeness of supervision and the requirements for capital, liquidity and so on. The EU’s goal has been more to ban what it does not like: “Let’s reduce financial activity; we will constrain, prevent and reduce what is going on.” Nowhere in the EU treaties is there any talk of prudential decisions that the EU might make that would go against the fundamental commitment to single markets and growth opportunities, so the 49 EU directives and other proposals on financial services coming down the track are already in breach of the spirit of the EU treaties, which are all about creating better markets and more access.

I want to mention a couple of those matters in particular. First, on the financial transactions tax, people may think, “They will never do it; it would be cutting off their nose to spite their face and the business will simply go elsewhere.” Actually, however, I think many people in the EU are determined to do it, because they do not want the business. They think that Anglo-Saxon light-touch regulation and the success of financial services are partly to blame for the eurozone crisis. They are quite wrong, but that is where they lay the blame, so they would consider a financial transactions tax that would drive business abroad to be a good thing. To anyone who thinks, “They would not do it,” I would say that they would if they had the opportunity. Of course, that would be disastrous for Britain. It would not be a tax on bankers; it would be a tax on pensioners, investors and savers, because it would go straight to the bottom line of every investment portfolio. If anyone said that it would serve bankers right, I would reply that it would affect not bankers but savers. I could not support that.

Secondly, a slightly unbelievable idea has been proposed in the eurozone that a clearing house with more than 5% of its turnover denominated in euros should relocate to the eurozone. That would be daylight robbery and steal our business, and I am glad that the British Government are already challenging it in the European Court of Justice. Where in the single market treaties, which are all about growth and jobs, does that appear? How would it support British growth and jobs? It would not. I am extremely concerned about the tone and extent of EU directives coming down the track. They are not yet implemented; but unfortunately, under QMV, they could be implemented without Britain’s say-so.

European Union Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Andrea Leadsom

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Yes, but I am left wondering whether their advice to us from the House of Lords today reflects the advice they gave to Ministers and the policies that Ministers in their day pursued. I am also left wondering whether my right hon. Friend the Minister’s advisers, when they go to the other place, will be advocating the policy he is now pursuing. I think that we are up against the establishment here. The establishment in this country is still wedded to the idea of ever-closer integration and even of joining the euro. I do not think that the British people or the Conservative party, which I think represents the aspirations of the British people on this subject, accept that view. I hope that there is a change of heart in Whitehall officialdom such that when the next generation of civil servants arrives, they will seek to re-establish the independence of the UK within the EU, rather than to carry on weakening it.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the referendum lock will place a new onus on successive Governments, if needs be, to work harder on any further giveaway of powers so that this and future Governments, rather than giving way to civil service opinion, will have to consider public opinion much more carefully and seek to justify any further transfer of powers? That has to be a good thing.

[Mr Jenkin]

I agree that it is a good thing, but I wish that the Bill applied to some of the powers that the Government want to give away now through treaty amendments and opt-ins.