---

Inter-Parliamentary Scrutiny (EU Foreign, Defence and Security Policy)

Until such time as we elect a Government—coalition or majority—who decide to withdraw from the European Union, I have to say yes. That is what the Prime Minister said yesterday: we are in the EU, we have to make it work and that is the end of the matter. We are in NATO, the World Trade Organisation, the convention on the law of the sea and lots of different treaty organisations that take decisions that impact on us and we have to make them work. I am worried. One cannot call the WEU back into being but I am extremely worried that we are sending a signal to our friends, particularly in Turkey, about the reduction of their status on European defence matters, all the more so as the Mediterranean boils up, if I may use that metaphor. I resent deeply the message we are sending to Norway. Frankly, Albania needs to sort out its own parliamentary incoherence and misbehaviours before I am willing to pat it on the back, fond as I am of the Albanian people in that country and in Kosovo. Twice in one week, with a small number attending—a worrying point—we have seen the absolutely wrong and incoherent way that this House of Commons deals with the European question. Until we have a proper debate and rethink our structures, we will always be running after the event and will have to try to persuade a non-Government not to push forward with a new structure that will reduce the Commons to bag-carriers for a much greater number of colleagues in the European Parliament.