Member

The House is free to reject this amendment. It would be tempting to see how many people would vote in favour of it. We are not suggesting doing that this afternoon, but there will come a point when we have to test whether your Lordships, and democrats generally across the United Kingdom, are prepared to put up with this totally unsatisfactory position. All democrats—unionists, nationalists and non-aligned in Northern Ireland—should be standing up and saying, “As a self-respecting elected representative, I want to make the laws for the people I represent and not delegate that to someone else”.