European Union (Amendment) Bill

The point about QMV in energy is that the new article should make it easier to deliver the effective EU energy-efficiency policies that we all seek to achieve. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) spoke earlier about the fact that France and Italy have not yet achieved liberalisation of their energy markets, yet 20 million of our own citizens enjoy the services of French and German energy companies. The challenge, of course, and the imponderable question, is this: if we were to remove EU competence for energy, how could we achieve that type of market access and liberalisation of the market seen in France and Germany, which all political parties claim to want to achieve?