Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

My right hon. and learned Friend must consider the extent to which this might be an opportunity for rules to be made and imposed on our criminal procedures from outside. This raises difficult issues. As I said earlier, I do not object to the concept of international co-operation and treaty-making in order to achieve desired goals. I suggest, however, that there is a difference between a treaty reached under the aegis of the EU under third pillar structures—which seems to have been working well, and the Home Secretary told us all about the good things that have come from it—and a system in which we accept, once we have opted in, that areas of criminal justice policy and any amendments made to them will, for ever thereafter, be subject to the control of the Commission and the European Court of Justice. I do not think that that is a slight matter. I have to say to my right hon. and learned Friend that one of the great failures of the Government has been to persuade their European partners of the success of the unanimity provisions and the third pillar, and to allow them to go gallivanting down this road. Articles 60 to 69 of the treaty seem to be a blueprint for achieving a Napoleonic system of justice throughout the countries that are signing up to it. It is perfectly plain that that is what is going to happen.