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Protection of Critical Infrastructure

As I indicated in an intervention on the Chairman of the Committee earlier, to a certain extent my concern turns on the manner in which these decisions tend to get taken by Government. I am not going to engage in a hostile confrontation with the Minister over this matter. As much as anything, it is a matter of attitude. The problem is as follows. Albeit that in 2004 the Council of Ministers asked for these questions to be considered, the reality is that in terms of the critical mass of the institutional changes, the attitude of mind—which is that everything should be Europeanised because that is the nature of the underlying concept of the European constitution, which has by no means been given up—means that all matters and questions of legal capacity have to be decided against the background of an assumption. That assumption is that if a choice has to be made, it would be better made at a European level than otherwise. There is also the issue of terrorism, which the Committee has stressed in this context, noting the fact that it had not been dealt with properly in relation to the role of the European Union counter-terrorism co-ordinator, Mr. de Vries, who was brought into the issue somewhat late in the day. The fact is that there are often decisions—particularly in relation to matters of national security—where the question of why something is being done is in lower case. It is something that emerges only in the course of a debate of this kind. Of course, it is precisely because the European Scrutiny Committee is so diligent and accurate in its analysis—given our expert advisers and legal advisers—that we are in a position to be able to challenge the assumptions on which things otherwise would simply roll forward. For example, in some other countries—the Minister might take note of this—[Interruption.] The Minister was wandering around the House like a caged lion. I do not know whether he is a lion or a mouse.