European Union Bill

I thank the noble Lord for giving way, particularly after he spoke so eloquently about political dogmatism. He will of course know all about political dogmatism. He has not helped his arguments by his tone of incredulity that perfectly sensible noble Lords across this Chamber might disagree with each other on the importance of giving away power or competence to the European public prosecutor’s office. He should be able to disagree with that without descending to the level of incredulity. I will tell the noble Lord why his argument does not work. If he thinks back, the article on the European public prosecutor’s office to which he referred, and which I have looked up, talks about the financial interests of the Union. It does not define, word by word, what those interests might be, or what acts those who go against the financial interests of the Union might have to perpetrate to do so. I remind him of the NatWest four and the extradition treaty with the United States. Many Members across this House and, I am sure, in the other place, are extremely uncomfortable about what happened there. Widely defined clauses can contain any number of provisions and can have all sorts of side effects. I just wish that the noble Lord would accept that the article is widely defined.