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European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, adds, ““And indistinct views””, but I will leave that to one side. They are none the less very interesting views. Having been the keeper of many pieces of legislation through your Lordships’ House, I was surprised to find that the amendment was accepted for debate. I queried it, not because it is not a perfectly reasonable issue to debate but because I did not think that it was relevant to the Bill. That remains my view. The amendment got through on a technicality in a sense, because there are some technical changes to preserve the UK opt-in and ensure that we are clear on a number of monetary policy issues, on to which the amendment has quite reasonably been hung. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, made sure that it was appropriate, so I say nothing to him on that. None the less, I was surprised. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and other noble Lords that this is not the place to have this amendment. For that reason, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.