European Union (Amendment) Bill

I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that he has followed the whole argument, because that applies to all the provisions that we are talking about. We are talking about the ways in which we can get from unanimity to qualified majority voting. Unless that is provided for in the treaty itself, the only way to way to go from unanimity to qualified majority voting at present is through a treaty process, such as the treaty we are discussing or the treaties of Maastricht, Nice or Amsterdam. That is the only way that it is possible to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting, unless there is specific provision in a treaty to enable member states to do that. The whole point is—as everybody has said throughout the debate—that the treaty is making it much easier to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting, although it is not doing away with safeguards completely.