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Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty) (No. 8)

The Minister always makes comparisons with treaties that were much shorter and much less controversial, but does he not accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison)? The Minister makes great play of the time that we have taken so far, but it has been largely taken up at the Government's insistence with general debates about European issues that have gone very wide of the treaty of Lisbon? The debates have been very familiar to many hon. Members; they have been about the merits and otherwise of various aspects of our European policy. Does he not agree that this experiment has been a failure and that we should have debated the amendments tabled by those hon. Members who, unlike me, disagree with the treaty's contents?