European Union (Amendment) Bill

The right hon. Lady shakes her head. Perhaps she has forgotten what she wrote in 2004, and it might be slightly unfortunate for her that I have kept some of her letters They were very good, and the European Scrutiny Committee relied on them. Has she changed her mind? Does she now support a treaty that overturns her earlier observations and turns the articles that we are discussing from areas of shared competence into areas of exclusive competence? Another of the amendments that I have tabled deals with shared competence. As things stand, the whole of the internal market will become an area of shared competence. That is not as bad as it all becoming an area of exclusive competence, but the treaty's definition of shared competence means that, when the EU legislates in this area, we cannot. That goes very much further than what the Government wanted at the time. They tabled an amendment to define shared competence differently, and it stated: ““Member States shall respect the obligations imposed on them by the relevant Union measures””. That was sensible, and it meant that member states could not legislate in direct conflict with a specific bit of legislation passed by the EU. That was a narrow definition of shared competence that all of us could support, but the definition in the treaty goes much wider. The whole area is therefore vulnerable: if the EU legislates in that competence, member states cannot. Once again, that shows that the treaty amounts to an enormous transfer of power, from Parliament and the people whom we represent to the EU. With those observations, I support amendment No. 237 and the associated amendments, and urge the Committee to vote accordingly.