European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Owen, because he raised some interesting questions; but they are so interesting that they would not be covered by the amendment. The amendment is headed: "““Treaty of Lisbon: clarifying arrangements””," but it does not clarify most of the important questions that were just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. We have just agreed that Clause 1—a very simple clause of three lines—should stand part of the Bill, and we now have ““clarifying arrangements”” adding a further 21 lines after Clause 1, the total effect of which is to create more confusion, because those lines will raise more questions than they answer. The situation is very clear—that we as Parliament hold our Ministers to account when they come back from Council meetings, and we will have the opportunity to ask every one of the questions that are listed in the so-called clarifying arrangements, plus any others that we have the ingenuity to think up. The amendment is unhelpful, and I will not support it.