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European Union (Amendment) Bill

If the hon. Gentleman had read the treaty, he would know that some of the issues that I have described are currently dealt with through qualified majority voting, which means that one member state can prevent the adoption of sensible measures to tackle them. If he has not grasped that yet, he has not grasped a point that is fundamental to how the European Union works and some of the problems with which the treaty deals. What has really struck me during our debates has been the utter failure of the treaty's Conservative opponents to give any example of the transfer by the treaty of significant powers and competences from the United Kingdom to Brussels. Despite all the usual guff about the surrender of British sovereignty, concrete examples have come there none. There are examples that the Conservatives could have given, but they have not drawn our attention to them, because those examples do not really help their case. Although there are absolutely no new transfers of power to the EU whereby the EU would have exclusive competence, there are two areas of power transfer where there will be shared competence between member states and the EU—energy and space. It makes sense for EU member states to have the ability to work together closely on energy policy, given the need to liberalise energy markets, to protect energy supply and to work together on new technologies such as renewables. I cannot believe that the Conservatives want a UK-only space policy so badly that they would oppose joint EU working on space.