European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am glad that I amuse the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and his colleagues. To us this new clause in the Lisbon treaty is not the democratic and helpful advance claimed by Europhiles generally. At the moment all that is necessary to leave the European Union is for Parliament—the House of Commons and your Lordships' House—to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, thus also repealing all the subsequent treaties which have been passed since as amendments to it. That is simple and highly desirable. I should be grateful to know if the noble Baroness the Leader of the House disagrees with that analysis. If we want to get out now, all we do is repeal the 1972 Act and we are out. But if we are forced to follow the arrangements set out in Lisbon, we have to go through a rigmarole lasting up to two years and we would be able to leave only on conditions agreed with the Council whose meetings about our withdrawal we would not have been able to attend. I call that much less satisfactory and much less convenient, and that is why we want to remove it. I have only one question for the noble Baroness the Leader of the House: if we ratify Lisbon, just how binding will the new arrangements be? I appreciate that we like respecting our treaty obligations and all that, but surely if Parliament decided that the UK should leave all it would still have to do is what it has to do now, which is to repeal the 1972 Act. Since the Government have agreed in these proceedings that one Parliament cannot bind its successors—and I ask the noble Baroness to reconfirm that briefly and clearly—surely a simple cancellation of the 1972 Act, and subsequent and depending Acts, would do the trick and set us free. What is the new position? I beg to move.