The foreign secretary has called for the "period of reflection" over the EU constitution to continue.

Speaking in a Commons debate on European affairs, Margaret Beckett said there was no clear consensus on the subject.

A year of reflection began after the rejection of the draft constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Leaders will consider the constitution's future at a summit starting on Thursday.

Beckett said the government believed the answer to the issues facing Europe would not be found in more "institutional wrangling, which to the outside observer was probably at best opaque and at worst self-indulgent".

She said the government was keeping an open mind on changing the way decisions are made over justice and home affairs.

But she dismissed "scaremongering about the loss of veto and about introducing the constitutional treaty by the back door".

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said the government had a "heaven-sent reprieve" when France and Holland rejected the constitution.

"Do you think that if the constitution were put back on the rails and won approval elsewhere and the government had to hold a referendum in this country, that the prime minister or the chancellor would think that was a good idea?" he asked.

Labour's Gisela Stuart, who represented Britain in the two-year convention which drew up the constitution, challenged the government to admit it was dead.

She called for ministers to say "that document will not help us in the next 30 to 50 years and is actually bad for Europe.

"Put it on the table and have it done with because at the moment this is just a kind of displacement therapy.

"They can go on talking about it because it stops them having to talk about the things that really matter."