European Union (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Gentleman will be allowed three or four minutes at the end to make his points. I hope that he accepts that that is a fair division of the limited time that we have left, and I shall make sure that I allow him that time. Amendment No. 125 would remove the provision that the EU should aim to combat discrimination when it acts. Article 2 does not give the EU any new powers to legislate, but it complements the current specific powers of the Council, introduced at Amsterdam, to legislate to combat"““discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.””" If we were to accept the amendment, all that would be left of anti-discrimination measures would be article 8, which promotes equality between men and women only. That is important, but amendment No. 125 would remove all the efforts to combat discrimination that I set out a moment ago. That is a ridiculous and reactionary attitude to Europe, and the Government want nothing to do with it. Amendment 129 would remove a simple restatement of the specific citizenship rights accorded to nationals of EU member states that have been part of the treaty since Maastricht. Opposition Members are resiling from that treaty in ever increasing numbers, but the treaty under consideration tonight would not affect the specific articles on the rights of citizens. I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Stone to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. I wish to allow the hon. Member for Stone time to sum up his arguments. He claimed that things were moving in the right direction for Conservative party policy on Europe, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) noted, the Opposition are more obsessed about, and more isolated in, Europe than at any time in their history. If we were to accept the Opposition amendments, the direction in which we were moving would be towards the EU's exit door.