Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4)

I have the same respect for the right hon. Gentleman, as he will know. We go back a long way and I always congratulate him on his Europeanism, with his house in France. It is very nice of him to be so European and to have a domicile in France as well as one here. I shall not try to quote Shakespeare again—you did not want me to do so last week, Mr. Deputy Speaker—but there are so many arguments that could be made on the Single European Act and the single market, yet they are not made, even by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge or the right hon. Gentleman. However, I would like what we mean when we talk about this legally binding protocol to be put on the record at least once, properly and coherently, because there are those in this country who follow our debates in Hansard. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said:"““There was also a discussion at the Council about competition. The treaties have always made it clear that competition in the internal market should not be distorted. The now defunct constitutional treaty's objectives would have included new wording about ““free and undistorted competition””. When the treaty was set aside, that provision was lost, but we agreed on a new and legally binding protocol to be annexed to the treaties, which reaffirms the commitment to ensuring that competition is not distorted, and the other references to competition in the existing treaties will remain: for example, articles 4, 27, 34, 81 to 89, 96, 98, 105 and 157 from the European Community treaty. The legal position in relation to competition therefore remains unchanged.””—[Official Report, 25 June 2007; Vol. 462, c. 22.]"