European Union (Amendment) Bill

Yes, my Lords, it is. It is one of the horizontal articles. Noble Lords will forgive me that I do not have the text in front of me; the numbers change from time to time. It says that the purpose is to apply to the institutions and only to the member states when they are implementing Union law and not otherwise. The purpose was therefore not to add to existing rights or mirror existing rights to apply to the European Union institutions so that they did not trample on our rights in the same way as we accepted this Government should not trample on our rights. Against that background noble Lords may well ask, ““Why bother with the protocol? If that is clear, why bother with it?””. My answer to that is, ““Why bother with it?””. It is something that was thought to be helpful, to make it clear. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said, ““Let’s have belt and braces””. The purpose of the protocol was to be belt and braces; not that we believed that it was necessary, but it would put the matter beyond doubt. I have two difficulties with what has been said. First, I understand from the report I have had—I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, if I have got this wrong—that the noble Lord has relied on what I said as indicating a doubt on my part about the efficacy of the provisions that we put in the charter, or a doubt on my part that the European Court of Justice might go beyond its intended function.