Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Wallace of Saltaire's debates with the Leader of the House
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Shall we hear from the Cross Benches and then Labour? We have not yet heard from the Liberal Democrats. We may go around the Benches and there is plenty of time.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I join the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, in saying that the Prime Minister was extremely well advised not to contest the use of the institutions in the context of this intergovernmental agreement. I would only add, gently, that you cannot reserve your position on a decision that you are not a party to.
Can the Minister now answer a question that I have been asking with a certain persistence without getting any answers: what provisions in the intergovernmental agreement are objectionable to the British Government? He has just spoken warmly about Article 2, and I imagine that he could speak quite warmly about most of the other articles, so why are we not joining the agreement? It is a little difficult to understand. Perhaps the Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag when, with a look of some relief on his face—at least it looked like that on my television set—he said, “Nothing to sign. Nothing to ratify”—and, he might have added, “Nothing to make me run the gauntlet of my Back-Benchers”.
