Various parts of the Bill will come into force at different times. Clauses 8 and 9 will need to be in force on Royal Assent to allow the Electoral Commission to begin its consideration of which region Gibraltar should form a part. Other parts of the Bill will be commenced early, within two months of Royal Assent, to allow progress to be made on preparing secondary legislation. The timetable is tight and complicated, and it would be extremely unusual to make the use of the commencement order subject to consultation. Given the circumstances, consultation would be an unwarranted step, which would affect the timetable. If we miss the timetable, we will run the risk of not being ready for the 2004 elections.

I do not disagree with the amendment's principle. It is clearly right that we should work with the Government of Gibraltar on both the content and the timing of secondary legislation. Indeed, we will have to do so given that we are keen that some of the follow-on legislation should be enacted in Gibraltar. We need to ensure that, particularly where secondary legislation in this place and further legislation in Gibraltar need to be aligned, the timing is taken very seriously, and we will have to take the Government of Gibraltar's position on the commencement of the provisions into account.

As we are drawing to the end of the consideration of the issues in Committee, I want to make it clear that the Government are keen to look at what more might be done to clarify on the face of the Bill what role Gibraltar can play in passing further secondary legislation. I should caution the Committee that it is not clear how rapidly we will be able to do that, and, although I will be able to report on the matter on Report, it is not clear how long it will take, whether further amendments will need to be drawn up and how far we will have got. Although we will clearly be acting as speedily as possible in order to ensure full consultation with the Government of Gibraltar, the process may take a little more time.

The hon. Member for Stone and, on occasion, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome have taken great delight wherever possible in trying to minimise the amount of consultation that has taken place, and have created all sorts of colonial references, which is a little rich coming from the hon. Member for Stone.

We should be clear. A series of discussions has taken place with the Government of Gibraltar. It is an unusual situation that we are in—it does not apply to many other areas—in order to ensure that the people of Gibraltar are enfranchised in the European parliamentary elections. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the people of Gibraltar should get a democratic vote in the European parliamentary elections. That is why the Bill is so important, and where possible it should draw support from both sides of the House of Commons.