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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. Quite a lot in this brief debate has turned on the remarkable and voluminous work of the European Union Committee. The chairman of that committee does a splendid and superb job, but not even he would claim that every word of every report was the gospel truth that shall not be gainsaid or questioned. Like all bibles, it is capable of a certain amount of interpretation in rival ways. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, was quoting great legal authorities giving views in one direction, but there are views in another. Mr Neil O’Brien has pointed out that the Government have traditionally resisted the conferral of a legal personality on the Union. The Minister tried to explain why, but there are some big gaps. It was not only traditionally resisted; the Prime Minister said that the Government were not having it and that the idea of EU legal personality would not be accepted and had been stopped. Of course, in the end, it had not been stopped. If the whole parliamentary system is going to work properly within the European Union context, we need to know the reasons when there is any change of gear. That seems to be missing, even from some of the reports submitted to your Lordships’ House and the other place. Is it not our role to ask why? Is ours not to reason why? Listening to this debate—