Mr President, as we debate, yet again, this issue of the regulation of Lloyd's of London, 63 names are currently facing bankruptcy proceedings against them in the English courts. This is not an abstract issue to them, nor is it a matter that has long since been resolved. It is a very real issue and one that will continue to be of serious moment for years to come. Those 63 people did not become names under the present regulatory regime, but in the pre-2001 period. The losses that they are now faced with and that are, seemingly, forcing them into bankruptcy, occurred under the regulatory regime enforced between 1978 and 2001. Those 63, the petitioners to this Parliament, and thousands of other names from many European countries have one simple question, the question put in our resolution of last September and reiterated today: did the United Kingdom, between 1978 and 2001 implement, fully and correctly, Directive 73/239/EEC relating to Lloyd's? This question has been put to Parliament by petitioners. It is a legitimate question. We have put it repeatedly to the Commission. The Commission, so far, seems strangely reluctant to answer it. The dossier presented to Parliament in December in response to our resolution of September 2003 is totally inadequate and conspicuously fails to offer any answer to that central question. Commissioner Bolkestein, who launched two sets of infringement proceedings against the UK Government over the regulation of Lloyd's, regularly tells us that his responsibility is only to bring a Member State into compliance. That is right, but only in part. He has other responsibilities as well. Life would be simpler for us all if there was only one responsibility. That is never the case. Allow me to remind the Commission that it has a Treaty obligation, under Article 197, to answer questions posed by Parliament. That Article is not there to allow clever sophistry, like the question once posed in an Oxford University admission interview, which asked: 'Is this a proper question?', to which the smart-Alec reply is, 'Yes, if this is a proper answer.' That may well do in a university interview, but not in Parliament. If a non-reply was sufficient, there would be no point in having the Treaty obligation in Article 197. Citizens have a Treaty right to petition Parliament about whether rules are being respected. The Commission has a Treaty responsibility to ensure that EU rules and directives are properly respected. Parliament has a Treaty right to have its questions properly answered. I can only assume that, for reasons unknown to me, the Commission finds it embarrassing to answer this question. Clearly the British Government is acutely embarrassed and I find it shaming, as an Englishman, that the British Government is being so secretive in this case that it ordered the withdrawal of all British responses from the file the Commission released to Parliament. What on earth does it have to hide? The Commission should not aid it in this secrecy or become complicit in it. When this petition was put to the Commission, I believe the Commission behaved correctly. It investigated the petitioners' complaints. It was clearly not satisfied with the situation and sent a detailed questionnaire to the British Government. Although this House has never been allowed to see the responses, it is obvious that the Commission was still not satisfied, since it launched infringement proceedings. Subsequently it launched further, separate infringement proceedings covering the regulatory regime post-2001. The Commission now judges that the current regime is in compliance. Well, it knows the facts and we do not, so we cannot comment at this moment on that. But the Commission's satisfaction with the post-2001 regime does not take away our right to ask the Commission about the regulatory regime prior to 2001, nor the Commission's responsibility to answer us. The EU has to be based on a system of rules and laws. There cannot be a pick-and-choose system. Policy-holders of Lloyd's have a right and need to know whether the solvency rules were being respected. People who invested in Lloyd's names also have that right. As one said to me, we had a right to assume the rules on solvency were being respected and that we were not operating, as it were, in the Wild West, where rules could be ignored. If the Commission persists in refusing to give a clear answer to this House, we have a major difference about the interpretation of Article 197 of the Treaty and a major interinstitutional problem. In my opinion Parliament would need to refer this to the European Court of Justice for resolution under Article 232 of the Treaty. Under that Article, if Parliament believes the Commission has failed to act, under the obligations imposed upon it by the Treaty, then the ECJ can be called upon to give a ruling. I hope that this afternoon the Commissioner, whom I greatly respect, as indeed I do Commissioner Bolkestein, will now at long last give us a straight answer to a straight question. Did the United Kingdom between 1978 and 2001 implement fully and correctly Directive 73/239/EEC? Yes or no?

Political group: PPE-DE