European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am going to make some progress. It is also worth explaining how the treaty will improve the accountability and transparency of EU business. A full-time Council president, appointed by the member states and answerable to them, will bring greater continuity and drive to delivering the agenda. Elected MEPs in the European Parliament have to approve EU legislation in more policy areas and, as was mentioned earlier, for the first time, national Parliaments get a direct say in making EU laws. If a majority of national Parliaments oppose a proposal and national Governments or MEPs agree, it falls. Again for the first time, the treaty defines the EU's competences, setting out where the EU can and cannot act and it underlines that the EU has only such competences as are expressly conferred on it by the member states through the treaties. Those are good things—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) says from a sedentary position that there is hardly any power left in the nation state, but I do not know where he has been in the past 10 years. Actually, on further reflection, I do know where he has been—going through the Division Lobby voting against the things that the Government wanted to do. As I was saying, the measures I have described are good things and they are capped by the agreement at the last European Council that institutional reform would be put on ice ““for the foreseeable future””. No wonder that 27 Governments and 26 Oppositions have united to say that the treaty represents a valuable step forward and, above all—