Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of whether it is legally possible for each other EU member state to commit to a future change to the Lisbon Treaty before formal processes to agree those changes have been gone through in each of those countries.

The process for amending the EU Treaties is set out in Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union. The representatives of the Member State governments agree the amendments which then need to be ratified by all the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), has been clear that the EU reforms that we seek must be legally binding and irreversible and that there must be an agreement to change the treaties before the referendum in the UK.