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European Communities (Finance) Bill

I do not know much about the hon. Gentleman's former working life, although he knows a bit about mine. I have spent many hours of my working life in negotiations. In negotiations, people start with a position, and sometimes with a reserve position. Sometimes, in life, politics or commercial negotiations—I was doing the latter—people learn something and their position changes. That is the benefit of public political debate, and of having commercial negotiations face to face, in spite of video-conferencing. I have not spoken to the former Prime Minister about the issue, but I would have thought that he learned things and changed his position during the negotiations. That is an honourable and reasonable thing to do. If one is not prepared to do that, one is in a strange position as a politician. We constantly say that we want democracy in public debate, but we cannot have that unless people are prepared to consider changing their positions.