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House Committee: Parliamentary Passes

My Lords, during my six years as chairman of the European Union Committee, I travelled to about 17 or 18 of the national Parliaments in the European Union. I was always struck by the degree to which their Members of the European Parliament were integrated into their national Parliaments. In some countries, such as Denmark, there were even seats reserved for them in the Chamber so that they could be summoned there to answer questions from the national Members of Parliament. If any progress is going to be made in trying to bring the citizen closer to the European Union and the European Union closer to the citizen, particularly in this country where there is a major problem about that, it would be utter folly to deny the right of Members of the European Parliament to come and commune with our national parliamentarians.