European Union (Amendment) Bill

It is hugely encouraging that Labour Members' minds are increasingly concentrated on the advent of a Conservative Government. It is not surprising that they want to know some of these things further in advance, but these debates are about the treaty and the case for a referendum on the treaty, and we will be putting that case during these debates. It is worth noting that there is much on foreign policy on which the Government and the Opposition agree. Even on European matters, the commitments that we have made—in fairness, I must add that the Foreign Secretary did mention them—to work for a European Union concerned with the great challenges of global poverty, global competition and global warming, rather than with the aggrandisement of its own internal institutions, have been echoed to some extent by Ministers. At the Lisbon summit, the Prime Minister called for a focus on the challenges of jobs, prosperity, the environment and security—we agree with that—but while the aspirations and the language may often seem similar, the trouble with the Bill and the treaty is that they fly in the face of that British aspiration to create an outward-looking rather than an inward-looking Europe. In a Europe that needs greater flexibility, the treaty moves more power to the centre. In a Europe where nations need the freedom to compete, it will narrow those freedoms. In a Europe committed to democracy, it will take more decision making away from democratic control.