European Union Bill

I am not sure that my erstwhile noble friend should take such comfort from that. One of the reasons people join UKIP is that they are worried that they are going to be drawn further into the European Union, and certainly they will be much reassured when this Bill reaches the statute book that that is not going to happen. I suspect that he will see his membership going into reverse, but that will be his problem rather than mine. I was interested in the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. He said that the whole of this Bill is otiose because it would not have any effect in this Parliament. My noble friend the Minister intervened to say that of course it would in terms of updating the stability and growth pact because it was going to be exempted, and there might be other amendments from the European Union. I am afraid that I do not take quite such a phlegmatic view. The eurozone is in a state of crisis at the moment. That makes one wonder, when one looks at the people proposing these amendments, how many of them would have suggested that it was a good idea to join the eurozone some years ago. We all mistakes in politics, but that would have been a major one. If we had joined the eurozone and we were in it today, I can tell the House now that the asset bubble we have seen over the past few years would have been even bigger because the interest rates we would have enjoyed in the eurozone would have been much lower and this country would be in even greater difficulties than it is today. Let us return to the eurozone. I believe that it is reaching a crisis point, one where a decision has got to be made. Members of the eurozone either have to let the thing collapse and completely disintegrate with defaults happening one after the other, starting with the periphery countries and moving steadily towards the centre, or they have to completely revamp the eurozone so that there is probably a finance ministry or a massively beefed-up European Central Bank. The reason I am boring the House with all this is that that would need a treaty change. The Government would argue that such a treaty change would concern only members of the eurozone, not the United Kingdom, but I have to say that that treaty change would have come through both Houses of Parliament and possibly could be subjected to judicial review as to whether there were transfers of sovereignty as a result of such a treaty change coming through. Noble Lords might say that that is not going to happen in this Parliament, but is it not? At the moment there is a guarantee on sovereign bonds within the eurozone that will last until 2013, but we have to ask what will follow after that. I have to remind noble Lords that 2013 comes two years before the time when we are to have a general election in 2015. I give way to the noble Lord.