Treaty of Lisbon (No. 7)

We went slightly off at a tangent on the question whether a Parliament could decide how it would scrutinise or not scrutinise its Government. The treaty ended up reading:"““National Parliaments contribute…to the good functioning of the Union””." The word ““shall”” was taken out. Paragraph 16 of the European Scrutiny Committee's third report of Session 2007-08 suggested that the word ““may”” should have replaced the word ““shall””. May I inform the Minister that at the conference of the Chairs of European Committees on 18 February, a representative of another Parliament said clearly that Parliaments shall contribute? When we questioned that, we were told, ““They must contribute. It says so in the treaty.”” Clearly the interpretation outside this House is that removing the word ““shall”” has not diminished the compulsion to contribute seen by others.