The Conservative-backed private member's bill requiring a referendum on Britain's EU membership, which is due to be debated in the Commons on Friday, has been dismissed as a "parliamentary stunt" by Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury.

Alexander confirmed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that his party plans to abstain from the debate. "We won't be there," he said, pointing out that he had voted for measures that would already give the public a vote "if there [was] any transfer of power in treaties from Britain to the European Union".

Alexander said: "It was wrong to waste our influence in Europe by going after nation-specific repatriation rather than using our influence in Europe to build up the European economy that will improve job creation and growth prospects across Europe. We know from the eurozone that is what is knocking our economy back so much.

"Ukip will come and Ukip will go – what matters is that Britain stays a full member of the EU, that we have a referendum and as when major treaty change takes place but we do not try to conjure one up out of nothing for domestic political reasons."

However, the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, said the Tories were the only party that could be trusted on Europe and criticised his coalition colleagues for failing to back the private member's bill sponsored by the Tory MP James Wharton.

The bill's second reading is due to be attended by the bulk of Conservative MPs – including the foreign secretary, William Hague – but Labour has said it will abstain and not attend the Friday debate, in common with the Lib Dems.

Many Eurosceptic Labour MPs are also likely to stay away, angry at what they regard as the party-political way in which the Conservatives are pushing the bill.

The Wharton bill would allow a referendum by 2017, giving a Conservative prime minister time to try to renegotiate a new relationship with the EU. Maude dismissed reports in the Guardian at the weekend that the shadow cabinet was looking at backing a referendum – including an in-out referendum – before the election, saying he was not going to rely on "whispering here, whispering there", but will rely on what Labour says in public.

The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, and the shadow foreign secretary are opposed to shifting position on a referendum, but are becoming isolated in the shadow cabinet. Pressure is building within the shadow cabinet for Miliband to say he will support an in-out referendum within six months of the election.

Maude refused to say if he would countenance UK leaving the EU but said he wanted the UK relationship to change because the EU had become far too intrusive. "This process of a rush to ever more integration absolutely has to stop," he said.

Alexander also revealed the coalition's review into the alternatives to a replacement for Trident has been completed and sent to the prime minister and his deputy in the past fortnight. Alexander has led the review into the nuclear deterrent following the dismissal of the Lib Dem Nick Harvey as armed forces minister.

He said the question the review was trying to answer was whether complete renewal of Trident as previously planned was the only way to protect Britain in the future.