European Union (Amendment) Bill

I think it is normal for the mover of an amendment to reply at the end of the Minister’s response, as quickly as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and other Members of the Committee have extolled the value of subsidiarity but not one has answered my question about any single piece of European legislation being withdrawn as a result of subsidiarity. Those of us who have put our name to the amendment maintain our position that the thing is useless and should be taken out of the treaties. We were not impressed—and neither, I was glad to see, was the noble Lord, Lord, Hunt—by the system of yellow and orange cards. We agree with the German constitutional court that all those footballing metaphors are ineffective and impractical. I will ask and answer my next question, because we are in a hurry. Is there any possibility under subsidiarity and under the new protocol of the acquis communautaire being reversed by the Luxembourg Court of Justice? The answer is no. Nothing will be reversed—the ratchet will continue to grind towards the ever-closer union of the peoples of Europe, required by the treaties. We will continue to be cursed with legislation from Brussels about which the House of Commons and your Lordships' House can do nothing. I refer to the ladders directive, which means that you can no longer climb a ladder unless someone is holding the bottom—very good for our building trade. The food supplements directive, which is going through now, will control the amount of vitamins we can eat. Then there are the directives on the height of rocking horses in the nursery and on light bulbs—very important. These directives all come from Brussels—subsidiarity is nothing. Generally speaking, the nooks and crannies of our national private life, which we were assured at Maastricht would no longer continue to be invaded, will go on being invaded by the vibration directive and the 50-page directive on the manufacture of condoms. There is no hope for subsidiarity and no hope for this project. With those thoughts, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.