European Affairs

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are waiting, with great interest. However, he must bear in mind that if a group is to be formed, it must include MEPs from six other member states. We have been looking around to try to discover who they might be—as, no doubt, have others—and I must tell him that they will include some very odd people. I do not think that he would enjoy being the whip in that grouping. Unfortunately, we were not able to address European issues in the European election campaign—partly because the expenses fiasco crowded out other debate—and one of the reasons why that disappointed me was that we wanted to discuss matters such as crime. We think there is a hugely strong case for co-operation at the European level on crime. We are witnessing the rise of international organised crime. We are experiencing drug trafficking, human trafficking and gun smuggling, the impact of technology with cybercrime and appalling things such as internet paedophile rings, and international terrorism, so it is clear that there are international sources of crime on a new and massive scale. By their very nature, we cannot, of course, deal with them by ourselves. We have to work with other countries to tackle them, and there is no better way of doing so than from within the European Union.