"May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main? Although these two Commission annual reports are essentially factual documents, they were recommended for debate on the Floor of the House as their subject matter goes to the heart of the European Union debate: the …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"May I ask the Minister a bit more about the red card? Is it fair to assume that the number of countries that would be required to send in a red card would be lower than the number required to vote against it in the Council of Ministers to provide …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. However, could the red card serve any useful purpose if it were harder to get than a qualified majority vote against a proposal coming from the Commission, because all Governments are responsible to their Parliaments, and therefore to make it a …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"The very idea that Governments will have backbone in the face of Europe is a novel one, but I hope that we might see it one day.
Moving on to yellow cards, does my right hon. Friend think that part of the reason for the number of cards going down, …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"On that very point, the Commission has tended to respond even when a majority has not been reached, but it has often been pretty stubborn in pushing forward with its proposal anyway. Indeed, in one of the documents we can even see that it wanted to bring forward a more …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"I am grateful for that because footnote 16 on page 12 of the document gives the Commission’s view that the deadline is enshrined in the treaty and therefore would require treaty change, but the Commission can err, so I hope the Government are right.
"I am a bit puzzled by the Minister’s last answer. I thought the whole point of the green card was to give a group of member states the ability to propose changes to, amend, alter or even repeal EU legislation. Now, if it is not giving them the right that …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"You are being very generous today, Mrs Main; I promise that this is my last question. Is the Minister therefore saying that the democratic deficit will be addressed by the good will of the Commission when it feels like listening to national Parliaments?..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech
"I am very sympathetic with the point that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East makes that this might be the wrong issue to discuss, and that the real issue is how the nations of Europe can co-operate together. My answer is that they should do so through the …..." Jacob Rees-Mogg - View Speech