European Union (Amendment) Bill

: Possibly not. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is making extraordinarily heavy weather of this. The plain fact is that ““shall”” also contains a future component, which is easier to use in English because we use gerunds and compound verbs more than the French do. This is the German version:"““Die nationalen Parlamente tragen aktiv zur guten Arbeitsweise der Union bei””." That, like the French and the English, is very clear. I really think that the hon. and learned Gentleman—whose knowledge of French I respect, but it is not complete—ought to back away, because he is not doing his case much good.