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Liaison Committee: Third Report

I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord when he is in full flight on one of his well chosen paths, but I wonder how on earth he thinks that a government reply to another Member of this House can demonstrate that the influence of the committee and its sub-committees is nil. Of course, the noble Lord wants that to be the answer; of course, he wants there to be a reduction in the sub-committees and the committee to ensure that we do not scrutinise the European Union properly, because he wants to strengthen the argument to leave the European Union. However, it would be quite nice if we could address the subject before the House, which is the matter of the Liaison Committee's report, and could above all face the fact that the European Committee deals with a core function that is not dealt with by any other committee or by the House as a whole. If you reduce that core function, you reduce the effectiveness of how we scrutinise this work. I wish that the noble Lord would take account of that instead of arguing the contrary.