European Union (Amendment) Bill

I have never known the word competence to have had such an emotive response from the noble Lord. Competence is a word that, as I understand it, has a legal meaning; that is why it is used. Words in the European Union often have meanings that are understood across all member states. I do not know of any powers that have been returned; the noble Lord may well be quite right. If I can get the answer to that now, I certainly will. I do not know what procedure would be used, because that has not has yet been determined. My point was different; it was to say that the treaty recognises the possibility that powers could be returned. That of itself is novel and not to be underestimated as a potentially important aspect of thinking about the role of the European Union now and in future. As noble Lords have said, we are not going to get into the detail of what those competencies would be today. If noble Lords read the evidence given to the Select Committee by my honourable friend Jim Murphy, they will see set out the areas of difference in competences relevant within the Lisbon treaty; for example on sport, which is new; on space, which noble Lords have mentioned; on energy, tourism and so on. When, as we will, we come to debate the issues raised in some of the amendments about specific policy areas, we may as part of that deal with the competences in the treaty. My point on this amendment is simply to say that we believe that categorisation is positive, that it is important to list the competences to understand the limits and parameters of the role of the EU and, as I said, to recognise that this is power—if the noble Lord wishes to use that word—conferred on the European Union by member states, not the other way round. I can confirm to him that no powers have been returned thus far.