European Union Bill

At the risk of being accused of encouraging the hon. Gentleman, I must say that when Ministers are terribly courteous it is usually an indication that we are not getting anywhere. The first rule of politics is that until they are rude, we are not getting anywhere. The real problem is that the UK Permanent Representative to the EU is politically unaccountable. My ultimate plea is to have the UKRep stand here once a week, as the Deputy Prime Minister does, and be politically accountable for the negotiations and deals that are done at Brussels. Until we have that, all this is—