European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, the problem with an amendment like this is that the words ““cost-benefit analysis”” sound very factual. In fact they are very pseudo factual. You would need to do a complete study of what you included as a cost and what you perceived to be a benefit. If I were to do a cost-benefit analysis, I would, for example, want to look at how much the buttressing of democracies in Spain and Portugal during the 1970s and 1980s saved us on the NATO budget in strengthening the southern flank of NATO. I would want to look at how the investment that was made in Greece, following the colonels, buttressed that country's democracy and saved us massive expenditure which otherwise would have been put into our defence budget. Similarly, you can look at what is happening in the Balkans at the moment and at what has been happening in eastern Europe and the process leading to accession there. That sort of cost-benefit analysis is the analysis of people who pretend that they know the cost of everything but know the value of nothing. My brief point of fact is in relation to something that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said when he referred to this movement in Sweden that was leading to a rebellion against the ratification of the treaty. I happened to be in Sweden the week before last visiting the Swedish Parliament. I spent some time in the Rikstad listening to some of the discussion. I heard the debate on the Alpha Laval case, which has been referred to the European Court of Justice. Although there is serious concern about the case, I did not hear one speaker from any party—the government coalition, the social democrats, the greens or the communists—in any way link this discussion to the ratification of the treaty of Lisbon, which they will be dealing with in the Swedish Parliament this autumn. It is assumed by everyone there that the Swedish Parliament will overwhelmingly ratify the treaty of Lisbon.