Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is plainly the potential for it to be undermined by majority voting. That helps to explain why the Government's arguments on their red lines and opt-ins are so hollow. Far from solving their problems, the opt-ins and red lines will simply postpone over a four and a half-year period a series of decisions on which the Government are extremely reluctant to tell the House what they will do in individual instances. Each time they decide to opt in within the sphere of criminal justice, they will be—particularly with the possibility of amendments to follow—essentially providing a small hostage to fortune without knowing where the road will lead and without the ability to control the process other than by letting off the nuclear option of saying that the totality of our European Union treaty obligations will be abandoned. It is difficult to understand that to be an example of good government. The Government acknowledge that there are aspects of this treaty that we should approach with great caution—they also failed to negotiate properly with, or persuade, their partners about that. Yet they now tell us that that does not actually matter very much because the opt-ins will give protection. The opt-ins clearly will not do so. The real protection we had was under unanimity, and the problem we now have is that once every opt-in is negotiated we will have qualified majority voting. I simply wish to ask the Home Secretary a question—I hope that the Minister who will reply to the debate will deal with it. Which of the 80 matters to which we are now signatories do the Government think they can readily opt in to once this treaty is up and running, and which of them do they think will present a difficulty? The House is entitled to know that. We have in the recent past witnessed the Prime Minister going through all sorts of strange permutations and convolutions about Britishness. He tells us that there are commissions looking into Britishness, and that he wants to examine it closely and to come up with all sorts of recommendations, but our criminal justice system is one of the foundations and defining matters of our national life. That is not to say that it is perfect, but it is certainly distinctive and the Government—quite apart from my party—appear to be committed to its protection. I fail to see how the Government will do that with the treaty in its present form and the opt-ins provided. This afternoon, the Government have shown a capacity to trash just about every institution they come up against. They are certainly treating the criminal justice system and the rule of law in this country with contempt, and they are treating Parliament in the same way by curtailing debate.