European Union (Amendment) Bill

The interesting thing is interpretation, which is what I was saying to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I have discovered in my days in Committee that interpretation is everything. As far as I am concerned noble Lords were divided in their interpretation. I think we go back to the words of the noble and learned Lord. He is not in his place at the moment, but I know that he intends to give us the benefit of further interventions. I am sure that he would indeed speak to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, about these issues. I am very clear that this is about the role of a court in interpreting the law as it stands, which is what courts do. We have already discussed the value of that. The point I make in this context is that I believe that the treaty helps to define the boundaries more effectively between the role of the Court in terms of non-CFSP and CFSP. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, quoted an Open Europe allegation about the moves to QMV within CFSP. It is quite clear within the treaty that unanimity remains a general rule for CFSP. Implementing measures can be taken by QMV where the original decision has been unanimous; so if all 27 member states decide they want to do something they can then decide to implement it by QMV. That is our choice. We are not bound to do it; we do it because we want to do it. Unanimity is the determining factor on the decisions that we take. The Lisbon treaty has one case—and noble Lords referred to it—where the high representative returns with a specific request that has been given to him by the Council. It is not beyond the wit of this Government or another 26 governments to determine the precise boundaries of what the high representative will return with proposals on. Any noble Lord will know that as it will be a QMV decision, such proposals the high representative returns with will work only within set parameters and boundaries. Therefore they will make sure that those parameters and boundaries are set. As they are set by unanimity, we need to have no fear. We can point to examples. We talked about this in the context of our previous discussions where QMV can be an important tool to aid moving on and getting on with implementing decisions. The other cases cited by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, refer to non-CFSP action, where QMV already applies; for example emergency and humanitarian aid, and so on.