mr president there is something extraordinary about the monthly peregrination of this parliament between the two seats
we preach fiscal rectitude and yet we spend hundreds of millions of pounds a month on shifting our interpreters and our committee clerks and all the members
we talk about global warming and yet we emit thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases as fleets of lorries transport the necessary documentation back and forth
i know there is an argument that members of this house make for the symbolic significance of strasbourg and the historic idea and so on and i am rather attracted to the idea that the eu as a club of nations should share the institutions around rather than concentrating everything in brussels
but let us have one seat one way or the other
why do we not simply put it to this house that we should meet either permanently here in this handsome alsatian town or we should meet permanently in brussels
either way let us cut out the waste and let us in this time of austerity try and return some savings to our hard-pressed taxpayers
