Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

The hon. Gentleman advances the remarkable proposition that, just because the Commission wants something, we should all agree to it. Of course, many Commissioners have many ambitions, but proposals must rightly undergo an exhaustive decision-making process in the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and, occasionally, the European Council. Just because one proposal advanced by the hon. Gentleman is facing some difficulty, that does not make the case for switching to an entirely new set of rules that would profoundly alter the rights not only of Parliament but of the people we represent, and in my view undermine our powers of self-government, which is the issue I want to talk about. In the case of justice and home affairs, we are dealing with a core responsibility that, with tax, is one of the two big duties of the House in guarding the liberties of the people we represent and examining carefully the definitions of the crimes for which they could be convicted, the penalties that they could face or whether they can be tried twice for the same offence, whether they can be tried in their absence and whether they can be extradited to other countries and, if so, under what circumstances. Those issues are the subject of scores of criminal justice Bills that come before the House. I have lost count of the number of such Bills since 1997, but I am sure it is well over 20.