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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4)

I am making a point about the virtue of qualified majority voting, whereas the right hon. Gentleman is talking about the regulatory burden on business—a genuinely important issue. I believe that there are some cases of over-regulation in some sectors in the EU, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that we have been taking the lead in the debate in Europe about a totally different approach towards regulation, which emphasises the costs and the burdens on business in Europe. Impact assessments have now become standard practice in the EU, people have to justify a proposal for regulation and the benefits have to outweigh the costs that inevitably arise once it has been decided to regulate. There is, however, no way of achieving many of the goals we want—I would hope that we all share them, particularly in respect of the single market—without regulation, necessarily bringing some costs and regulatory burdens for employers. There is no way of pretending otherwise, but the European Union and the Commission have targets to reduce the burden of regulation, which is a welcome first step. I think that significant progress remains to be made, but in a sense the right hon. Gentleman's argument is not germane to my point about the benefits of qualified majority voting. That is my main argument today, yet the amendment to the motion and the amendments that we will debate later this afternoon would make it harder for us to make progress on single market issues in the EU. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) referred to article 118 and provisions on intellectual property rights, but I understand that Conservative Members want to ensure that we cannot proceed along the lines of qualified majority voting in those areas. I suspect that there will be a division of opinion among Conservative Back Benchers on that matter. It is striking to reflect on the extraordinary divergence between the rhetoric we hear in support of the single market and the content of the amendments, which would make it very difficult for us to make the further progress that we need.