European Union (Amendment) Bill

I take much pleasure in receiving it. I think that I already have a copy of it, and the arguments in it take one side of the matter. I have a curiously old-fashioned view, which is that if one wants to change something, one changes it and then tries to convince other people. My right hon. Friend is really arguing that we should never do anything in the United Kingdom, let alone the European Union, to which one cannot get everyone else to agree in the first place. I cannot go along with that because as an environmentalist, I am deeply concerned that the EU should do a range of things that the rest of the world is not doing. We have to set an example, and show that we are prepared to do something. I disagree with my right hon. Friend on the issue in question, but even if he is right, he cannot argue that that is a reason for changing the clause through the amendment. The two do not hang together. The only reason I have spoken on it was that I thought it worthwhile maintaining that not everyone agreed with his view on QMV or on the issue that he raised. The problem with the understanding expressed on QMV is that it fails to face the issue of what it means to co-operate. If co-operation is to be effective, when one shows willingness to do so, either under QMV or where there is a veto involved, it must stand so that it is something upon which others can depend. If it cannot stand, and we are merely considering a matter of part-time occasional agreement between Governments, there is no way in which the great efforts that we have to make in the EU can be made. Mrs. Thatcher understood that perfectly well when she insisted that the Single European Act, which changed more than anything else we have talked about, should not be subject to changes of Government or changes of attitude in Parliament.