Export Control (Iran) (Amendment) Order 2010

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to both the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and to the Minister for addressing this issue and responding to my Motion in a very detailed way. I accept what the Minister says in his assurance that the Commission’s powers—which are new powers, although of a very modest kind—will be clearly circumscribed, in his words, and that therefore, we are fulfilling our duty to be on guard and to watch anything that concerns the powers of your Lordships’ House, or, indeed, of this Parliament. I cannot resist one comment on the assertion that popped into his brief, and which I have heard so many times before, that the Lisbon treaty did not impinge upon our foreign policy under national control. The general public will stand astonished and bewildered at all the hoo-ha going on about control of the European External Action Service; and about the role of our former distinguished Member, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton; about the quarrels about what her powers should be, with national governments’ foreign ministers saying she should not take too many; and about the Commission saying she should take more. All that has led to great bitterness and dispute in Brussels, and clearly arises from the Lisbon treaty. To argue that the Lisbon treaty did not affect foreign policy leaves the layman utterly bewildered. It may be technically true, but in the real world it really is not true at all. I was unable to resist that remark, but I try to sweeten it by saying that the Minister has presented a perfectly sensible response to a matter that I think it was right to raise before the House. In the light of what he says, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion. Motion withdrawn.