Treaty of Lisbon (No. 2)

I would never want the blood of my right hon. and learned Friend to run cold. We enjoy his good cheer. To summarise my argument, I believe that powers that are unnecessary should not be included in legislation. Enough already exists to cope with any kind of energy co-operation that we need. The vagueness—and, consequently, the almost unlimited scope—of these powers gives us cause for concern. The basis for that concern is the experience of the past few decades, which has shown that powers that we were told would hardly ever be used—or only narrowly used—have ended up being broadly used and changing the nature of our powers compared with those of the EU. That is the concern that underlies so much of what is in this treaty, and in those that have gone before it. I have not been in the House as long as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, but even I can remember that, from the Maastricht treaty onwards, the track record has been that the promises made in this House do not turn out to be true in practice on the ground thereafter. That causes a lot of angst, political distress and disapproval of politics in general among the broader electorate.