European Union (Amendment) Bill

I realise that I was opening myself up to that intervention, but the argument cuts either way. If the principle in a small democracy is not to elevate on a pedestal too high a particular individual, particularly in this celebrity, media-driven age, but to have a regular rotation so that no one acquires too much power, personality or personal influence, one could perhaps argue that, in this enormous Union of around 500 million people, with its 27 rising to 28 members, the case for avoiding the overglorification of a presidential figure is even stronger. It is a cause for some sorrow to hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches that they are not worried by endowing an individual at a very high level with great power, which will probably be the case, although we have not worked out what that degree of power is meant to be. I turn from the efficiency/effectiveness issue to the rather interesting letter that the noble Baroness the Lord President has circulated since our previous Committee stage debate. It is from the Minister of State, Mr Jim Murphy, to my noble friend Lord Grenfell.