I was talking about the date the Government were specifying, but that does leave a bit of time, I concede that.
One of the things that I would like to know before we conclude the debate is what estimate the Government have made of the possible costs of cessation of participation under article 10(4). Throughout the now discarded Command Paper the Government merely repeat the view that they consider the economic impacts to be negligible, but unless we have some idea of how they arrive at those figures, we could be asked to vote for a blank cheque today. I am not quite as comfortable with that as others might be.
I am also worried about the implications for security and organised crime. Article 40 of the Schengen convention of June 1985 covers surveillance and assistance across borders, but the Government’s own Command Paper acknowledges that opting out of article 40 will leave us reliant on international letters of request. It goes on to point out that there would be no way to compel other states to respond to international letters of request.
Any transitional arrangements made following the opt-out are made by the Commission and the Council without the UK, so what will happen if the transitional arrangements are not acceptable? As I understand it, we are talking about 30 measures on issues decided by the Council and the Commission, and they are subject to qualified majority voting. The measures that apply to the Schengen agreement are subject to unanimity with a veto, and we have all seen that the veto can be exercised in Europe. It would be helpful if we could have some further explanation on what consideration has been given to these factors .