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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 7)

My hon. Friend makes a good point, which could be made about so many aspects of the treaty that we are assured will make no difference, including the clarification—I think that is what the Minister called it—of the competences of the EU and the nation states. But if that is of no importance and only a clarification, why did the Government oppose the statement of so many of those competences? I shall come to that point in the course of my speech, which I will truncate in deference to the time and other hon. Members' need to speak. There is one argument that advocates of the treaty like to return to in this matter decision making: that is that without the treaty, an enlarged EU would not really be able to function. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, told the House that the constitution was"““necessary to make the accession work””—[Official Report, 14 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 306.]" but it has been more than three years since the great enlargement of the EU to 25 and subsequently 27 member states, and the EU is working perfectly well. The solid weight of testimony that the EU's existing structures have dealt more than adequately with enlargement is supplied partly by academic studies. The latest is a study by the distinguished member of the Government's Better Regulation Commission, Professor Helen Wallace, who has found not only that the picture is of business as usual rather than gridlock but that"““non-treaty reforms have played important roles in altering processes and procedures so as to improve the capacity of the institutions to do their work””." Current and former Foreign Secretaries, in unguarded moments of frankness, seem to agree. I remind the House of the words of the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), which I have mentioned in earlier debates on the Bill. Last year, she told the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that"““there have been comments from various quarters that if the European Union cannot get an agreement””" on treaty reform"““there will be a huge crisis and that the EU will no longer be able to function…the last few months have shown that that is not actually so. The EU is functioning and has, indeed, reached some quite far-reaching decisions””." If people do not listen to the previous Foreign Secretary, I hope that they will at least listen to the current one, who said that the EU's agreements on climate change"““have done more to show the relevance of the European Union than any amount of institutional tinkering””," and I fully agree with him on that.