European External Action Service

I think that the Minister said glitz and glamour. Perhaps Cathy will defend herself. The important point is that we have before us a slightly difficult process. I fully understand why it has been difficult for the Government to bring things before a European Scrutiny Committee, though I gently say that it would have been better to have had a European Scrutiny Committee in place by now. I gather that we will have a splendid cream-suited Chair, in the shape of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but it would be good if we had a full Committee and if that were able to get on with its work as fast as possible. As the Minister will know, I was taking this business through the House at a difficult time in the run-up to the general election, and I tried as far as possible to keep the two Committees in the Lords and in the Commons informed about the process of the discussions that were going on at every stage. But the fact that we have now had several months without a European Scrutiny Committee does not enable this House to do the business of scrutinising these and many other decisions better. I would just ask the Minister briefly, on the matter of the intergovernmental conference, which was not announced to the House and which was held in the margins of another meeting and agreed to by the Prime Minister without any announcement to the House, if he could at some point provide us with the minutes of that conference. They have not yet been available anywhere, either on EUROPA or in the Library of the House.