European Union (Amendment) Bill

I promised the Lord President that I would be extremely brief. I am delighted that the speeches which succeeded that of my noble friend Lord Hunt afforded enough time for the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, to receive instructions on how he should play this debate, given the turn of events. I am a bear of very little brain but late at night on the first night in Committee I revealed that I had served on the Budget Council of the European Union for four years. During those four years we knew when we had won an argument and when we had not. I agree that some victories are not clear cut. In the War of the Spanish Succession, Ramillies and Bleinheim were clearly profound victories, Oudenarde and Malplaquet were more doubtful. But nobody has ever suggested that the Battle of Waterloo was other than a victory, even if Prince Blücher sought to persuade Wellington in the picture that looked down on President Sarkozy when he made the speech to which my noble friend Lord Lamont referred, that the title should be changed to the name of the pub, the Belle Alliance, in which Napoleon ran his campaign during the battle and which is in the background of the picture. Nobody has suggested that it was other than a clear victory. The question which we have to ask the Lord President from these Benches is, notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Radice, said about the legal protocol, why was the Sarkozy amendment allowed to go through, given the pride that he self-evidently took in the matter at the meeting in the Royal Gallery, to which reference has been made? How can the position which we were defending as we went into that meeting—like the Duke on a ridge in front of the village of Waterloo—have been reinforced by making the concession that we did?