---

European Union Bill

Is there not a further irony that shows how throughout the Bill, from Clauses 2, 3 and 4 up to Clause 7, which basically deals with the system of passerelles, there has been a problem for the Government of trying to find the correct draftsmanship and making it incredibly complicated as a result? Is it not ironic that the then Conservative Government in the mid-1980s were mad keen on the passerelles to help the Single European Act—that was when the system first started? Subsequently, there were very few, but in the Lisbon treaty, all the member states regarded them as indispensable to allow the Union to move forward on matters which had already been decided in substance—that is Clause 7 in essence—and therefore did not require an intergovernmental conference or a unanimous decision. Why is there so much agony for the government draftsman about this unnecessary clause?