European Union (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is guilty of a partial reading of the treaty. The permanent structured co-operation in article 1 of the protocol to which he refers is governed by another article under title V. I shall not repeat it, but permanent structured co-operation is created by a qualified majority vote of the Council. Moreover, such a vote can remove a member that no longer satisfies the criteria that the protocol lays down. The protocol’s obligations, which I read out earlier, are onerous.