European Union (Amendment) Bill

Sir Alan, I do not. I want to make progress on this point, and to do so quickly. The lead amendment is grouped with amendment No. 272. I suppose it is possible that the right hon. Member for Wells could formally propose the amendment. As I understand it, that amendment would exclude article 161 (a) from the treaty, which specifies:"““Union development cooperation policy shall have as its primary objective the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty. The Union shall take account of the objectives of development cooperation in the policies that it implements which are likely to affect developing countries.””" That part of the treaty requires European Union development policy to have poverty focus as its primary objective. Members of all parties have said that that provision is extremely important, and have welcomed it. That is also the part of the treaty that requires the EU to co-ordinate policies run by other parts of the Union, such as its trade policy or agriculture policy, and to make them coherent with the development policy. Again, I have heard Conservative Members, as well as Members from other parties, support that provision warmly tonight. If amendment No. 272 is moved tonight, will the hon. Member for Rayleigh and Members of his party support the deletion from the treaty of the poverty alleviation commitment and the policy coherence commitment? Having heard the speeches this evening, I should have thought that that was at least the one part of the treaty on which there was good cross-party consensus: policy coherence ought to happen, and the EU ought to pursue such policies. The EU would certainly be more likely to pursue those policies if they were in the treaty.