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European Council: 15-16 October 2008

My Lords, first, I shall deal with Statements and noble Lords’ access to them. It is extremely difficult. The Prime Minister stood up to make his Statement at 3.30 pm. The Statement that I read out, as noble Lords may have noticed, is substantially different from the one that was issued about five minutes before, which said, ““Check against delivery””. I do not suggest that we in this House should follow everything that the Commons does, but no one in the Commons has the Statement until the Prime Minister has stood up. It is the same in this House. Of course we will try to ensure that the Statement is available in the Printed Paper Office as soon as the Prime Minister stands up. There has been absolutely no change in the Government’s policy on asylum and immigration. We have recently introduced a points-based system, which is the policy of the Government. However, there is always active discussion of such an important policy, which sometimes carries on into the press. As I understand it, the migration pact, which was agreed at the European Council, in no way changes the United Kingdom’s policy. We have a points-based system. That is the policy of this Government, and it has not changed over the weekend.