Amendments

8.30 LDEPP meeting.

9.00 Back to the office for more struggles with amendments.

10.30 Meeting with the Forum of Private Business.

11.00 Group meeting.

12.30 Photo with group of visiting Lib Dems.

13.00 SME circle lunch. The major topic of discussion is the reclassification of various previously exempted technology goods for import duty. A lot of this is due to the way in which technology has become integrated so that a still digital camera (exempt) that can now take a short moving sequence is classed as a movie camera (not exempt). This is bad news for many industries and seems rather like some over zealous interpretation. I feel some Parliamentary Questions coming on.

15.00 I thought I had a meeting with Commissioner Kroes but it seems to have migrated to another week again. So back to the amendments.

16.30 Meeting with FSA/CEIOPS (Insurance regulators).

17.15 Meeting with 3i on private equity and venture capital.

18.00 Reception for mutual societies organisations. We have today voted an amendment saying we want a European Mutuals statute. This would be a revival of a proposal that got axed when lots of old proposals were scrapped. We said it was a mistake to get rid of this one at that time.