Part of Orders of the Day — Regulatory Reform Bill [Lords] (Programme) – in the House of Commons at 11:10 pm on 19 March 2001.
In that case, can the Minister explain why the EU force—I think that it is an army—needs a military committee, a political committee to direct it, beefed-up strategic intelligence and extra transport? Is it not, in practice, a scheme for a comprehensive military force that does things that NATO does not want to do—not under NATO command and not in co-operation, but separate and deliberately so? Have not the Government lost to the French on that very issue?