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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am very glad that the noble Lord is spellbound, but I very much hope that his Government will, on his behalf, be able to answer the questions that he does not face. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to answer the same question in relation to the common agricultural policy that I asked on the common fisheries policy, which he did not answer. Why can this wicked policy not be changed? What is happening in Brussels with the common fisheries policy and this policy? Which countries are holding up that change? Such discussions may well be secret in the enclaves and procedures of Brussels, but it would be helpful to the British people if they knew why this policy could not be changed. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said that the European Parliament would be immensely helpful in this regard—I maintain that it will not—and that the Council of Ministers had made a mess of this over the years. But, surely, if change were to come, it would have to be proposed by the Commission in secret. It would have to be negotiated in COREPER and then passed by the Council. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, shakes his head but I have to ask him whether that procedure occurred with proposed reform of either the common fisheries policy or the common agricultural policy. I suggest that it has not. The position of the UK Independence Party is that if we left the European Union, which we should do, we would run our own agriculture to suit ourselves and stop being part of this evil on the face of the planet. I simply ask: how dare the European Union propose to lead the way on environmental policy for the good of the planet when it has been responsible for this for so many years—and why can it not be abolished?