I shall not follow the line of argument pursued by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer).

For many years, people in the Labour party and outside, some more than others, argued vociferously that NATO's figures showing the enormous disparity of conventional forces between NATO and the Warsaw pact were a fiction. I remember the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament producing a document that it subsequently denied it had sent out, arguing that the concept of the Speznatz was a figment of some militarists' imagination. But when the CFE negotiations began, the Soviets honestly put on the table exactly what they had. They admitted that they had lied and, if anything, the discrepancy had been understated.

It is possible to argue that people on both sides played up the cold war for their own advantage and, bearing in mind the evidence available, most people would argue that, looking back for a period, there was a considerable threat. The cold war did exist and it was not exclusively the responsibility of a handful of warmongers on either side. But I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the situation changed radically. One should put the past in perspective while remembering the agonies that both sets of alliances went through.

If one had to describe the events of the last hour and a half or so the word farce would be inappropriate. The proceedings have been more than farcical. This is a critical Bill, yet party managers on both sides of the House have, for one reason or another, been determined to rattle through this important measure in a short time, late at night, putting pressure on those who wished to speak to be brief—not observed by all, myself included. That shows the House in a bad light.

When it comes to controlling the Executive in defence and foreign affairs, we are probably slightly in advance of the Supreme Soviet before the Gorbachev reforms. Events such as this vindicate the view that we are permanently bypassed. The only defence for such an approach would be if it could be argued that because of the need to implement the CFE treaty the legislation had only a narrow time slot.

Legislation going to the Lords is often perceived as being less important. The House rarely gets it teeth into legislation relating to treaties, arms control, defence—anything that is serious. One can do nothing about this now, but I register the strongest possible protest to the party managers and to my colleagues in the House that we have allowed something as important as this to be dealt with in such a cursory and contemptible manner.

Those who spoke are part of that process. I spoke for 10 minutes, which in itself was a mistake in the light of subsequent speeches. A matter such as this should have been dealt with in great detail, even if it required one, two or three sessions. It is insulting to the House that we cannot raise enough knowledge or enthusiasm to speak in detail about specifics. The Bill is not about START, chemical arms control, open skies or anything mentioned by hon. Members; it is a specific piece of legislation. We did not do it justice. Although that may be partly the fault of Back Benchers, I feel that the bulk of the blame lies with those who decided to rattle through it so quickly. I very much hope that, if we deal with similar legislation in the future, Government and Opposition will decide to give us a little more time, at an earlier hour.

In a couple of weeks, I shall attend a conference of the North Atlantic Assembly. We parliamentarians—well versed in parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, and in parliamentary control of Governments dealing with defence and foreign affairs—will lecture the newly emerging democracies of eastern Europe on how to control the executive. All that I can tell them is, "Please do not follow our example." In their few months' experience of democracy, those countries have probably established more control over their executives than we have established over ours after 700 years of trying.