European Union (Amendment) Bill

I oppose amendment No. 82, as it is certainly clear from many speeches made by Opposition Members that the role of this amendment and indeed many others is to block the competences introduced by the Lisbon treaty. Today the President of the European Parliament starts his official visit to the United Kingdom. As a former MEP and someone who is proud of this Parliament, I take great exception to many of the comments made by Opposition Members regarding the legitimacy of the directly elected European Parliament in both its current and its proposed form, which would include many improvements made by the Lisbon treaty. At the moment, the European Parliament has 785 directly elected Members. That figure will be made more manageable for a European Union of 27 member states by being reduced to 751. Limitations will be made at the bottom end—no country will have fewer than six MEPs—as well as at the top end: no member state will have more than 96. That will make the European Parliament much more effective than it is and, given the other changes, which I shall mention shortly, much more legitimate in the eyes of the European peoples.