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EU: Codecision (EUC Report)

We are talking about a balance, and I am talking about matters which are for your Lordships' House. I am just indicating the views of some colleagues in my party that we may put forward to your Lordships—to the House—to decide whether a different balance is required. We are where we are. Certainly it must include mechanisms to cope with the considerably expanded load with which the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and the committee, of which the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, is a distinguished member, has been grappling with. We must be careful not, as a result, to exclude by virtue of resources the ability to consider the other vast developments in the world and the shifting global power which places Europe in a different perspective and places our interests in a different perspective. The usual argument that developing a change of balance and a new committee structure would duplicate the Commons is not valid, because the range of issues—covering our relations, concerns and interests in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America—will be far wider than anything which either the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which I know a bit about, or any new committee in the Commons could possibly cover. I concede that those are big issues, to which much new thought will need to be given. Meanwhile, I repeat what I said at the beginning: I salute the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and his committee in seeking to strengthen the existing system. That is certainly needed; the report addresses the immediate problems with thoroughness; and I welcome it.