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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his generous remarks about the style in which I introduced the amendments. It is fair to say that this debate is somewhat less heated in nature than our debate about common foreign and security policy and the debate on defence we never really had time for. I have some specific comments about the Minister's remarks, but first I want to refer to some of the other contributors. The Liberal Democrat spokesman spoke briefly, presumably because he wanted to give others an opportunity to contribute. He made a plea to us about greater co-ordination on policy—I think I quote him correctly. He gave as an example greater co-ordination on defence, which he said the Liberal Democrats would welcome.