Treaty of Lisbon (No. 7)

I will give way again shortly; I should like to make some progress. The current six-month rotating presidency is clearly not a sensible system for the European Council. It means that the body lacks direction and consistency. Like many Members, I was pleased to see the focus that the UK Government gave to the Make Poverty History campaign during the last UK presidency of the European Council. While some progress was made on that front, I believe that much more could and should have been achieved. A longer presidency with proper time to set an agenda and follow through on issues is therefore a good idea. In the context of the extension of the term for this role, we were all very entertained on Second Reading, and then a little again today, by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and his imagery of a supreme president Blair—perish the thought. Although he paints a very memorable picture, away from fantasy land the reality is that the president of the European Council proposed in the treaty does not gain additional powers and the role will remain the same as it is now, but with a slightly less frantic turnover of occupants. There are genuine concerns about how the president of the European Council, the President of the Commission and the new expanded high representative role will interact. I understand those concerns and would like to hear more from the Minister about how those roles will be clearly defined and made to be complementary to one another rather than in constant conflict. Let me turn to the Council of Ministers. The moves towards qualified majority voting in this respect are arguably less significant than in the Maastricht treaty. As we have heard, 16 areas will not apply to the UK or are areas for which we have negotiated opt-ins, 14 are purely procedural, and the rest are clearly in the UK national interest. We have heard in previous debates about the British entrepreneurs who will be helped by facilitating self-employment in other member states, the British businesses that will benefit from better co-ordination of intellectual property rights, the advantages in making EU humanitarian aid operations more streamlined, and the energy liberalisation aspect. In those cases, the move to QMV helps the UK by reducing the likelihood of such welcome measures being blocked by states that are perhaps less enlightened and less committed to market liberalisation. As we heard from the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick), the changes to the way in which QMV is calculated in the Council are also clearly in the national interest because the power of the UK's vote will go up from 8 per cent. to 12 per cent. Given the general dislike on the Tory Benches of anything being decided in Brussels, even on clearly trans-national issues such as climate change or cross-border crime, I wonder why they do not welcome that stronger voice for the UK in these discussions.