European Affairs

I will reply to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, who always takes a close interest in these debates and is, as usual, in his place, where we expect him to be. There are questions for the Government to answer. They ask whether we have influence in Europe relative to them. They put tremendous effort into advocating that Tony Blair be President of the Council. The Prime Minister backed him publicly for weeks. We said publicly and plainly that we did not believe that he was the best candidate for the job, setting out our reasons clearly. At the end of the day, it was apparent that many European Union countries agreed with us and not with the Government, or indeed the Prime Minister, so we are reluctant to take any lectures from Labour Members about influence in Europe.