European Union (Amendment) Bill

The right hon. Lady nods; perhaps there is a slight difference of opinion between her and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris). This country might not want to differ in any way from a position adopted by the EU. We might want to engage in a common statement of our intentions. The Minister acknowledged when he appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee last year that there was an issue with the provisions that I have highlighted. The question that arises, before we get carried away by excessively nebulous concepts, is whether the Government have succeeded in curing the problem. My reading of the text—particularly when I read it in French, which is a slight advantage that I have from being conversant and fluent in that language—is that the Government have not succeeded at all. The ambiguity has been left open, despite the fact that the Government said that that was precisely what they wanted to close. Given those circumstances, amendment No. 13 or a similar measure could solve the Government's problem and reassure me.