European Union (Amendment) Bill

No, I will not take interventions from someone who has just come in. People have been sitting here all day, and all week. It is important that people realise that what was sent by the ““I Want a Referendum”” campaign was a series of falsehoods—calumnies, in fact—concerning the work done by the European Scrutiny Committee. It sometimes chose to use half of a sentence, or even a quarter of a sentence. For example, it said that the Scrutiny Committee had said that the"““Reform treaty was ‘substantially equivalent’ to the EU constitution.””" That was not what was said in the report. What was actually said was completely different:"““What matters is whether the new Treaty produces an effect which is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty.””" The campaign just took the last part of that sentence and presented it as a fact. The report went on to say that for countries that did not have opt-outs and derogations, the treaty was substantially the same, but that that was not the case for the UK. What the referendum campaign sent out said that there would be a cut in the UK’s voting strength. Not true; it is a lie. The UK’s voting strength in the Council is going up because of the treaty. The campaign referred to immunity for Europol officers. People should read the report that we put out last week, which showed that the Home Office has won an agreement that Europol officers will not be given immunity. That is a fact; we have won that fight. It goes on and on, it says—