European Parliament Elections Bill

Debate between Christopher Chope and Stephen Pound

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

It has been a pleasure to listen for so long to my hon. Friend on the Front Bench. I think that he will be a worthy nominee to the European Commission, because he has today shown his capacity to make a bureaucratic mountain out of a veritable molehill. He has also, in the course of his speech, set out a number of very good reasons why we would indeed be better off leaving the European Union, for which I am grateful. He pointed out that even when all the United Kingdom’s MEPs vote in the same lobby, they have fewer than one in 10 votes, which means we will always be in a minority. We will always find that our national interest cannot be protected in the European Parliament because of the system we have. I hope that the Government will be saved the burden of having to examine the issue any further when the people decide to leave the European Union on 23 June. In anticipation of that result, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill withdrawn.

[Stephen Pound]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Your distinguished predecessor, the right hon. Baroness Boothroyd, once ruled me out of order one a Friday morning, during a debate on offshore oil platforms, because I had listed the full names and Latin names of every single species of marine life to be found in the vicinity. She said at the time that the House will not accept tedious and needless repetition of irrelevant facts. Do you agree that listing the voter turnout in 28 European nations and the number of MEPs comes within the aegis of the Boothroyd ruling?