§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the subsidiarity and proportionality protocol in the Treaty of Amsterdam. [134764]
§ Mr. VazThe Government regard subsidiarity as a key principle, and support the Amsterdam protocol, which sets out in detail how it is applied. It is too early to make a full assessment of the concrete results of the protocol, as it has only been in force for one year. But the Government are confident that it will be effective because it is legally enforceable, and should therefore help deter the bringing forward of proposals which breach the principle. The better the protocol works, the less we will see it.