It is one thing for our Government to indicate to the banks owned by the British taxpayer, such as RBS, the level of bonuses that it believes appropriate. Or for shareholders to be more actively engaged in the companies they own, and ensure that managers have greater regard for shareholder rights (rights which the European Parliament’s plan would actually undermine). It is quite another to pass laws covering all financial institutions, including those with no public shareholders at all. Worse still, European legislation is a one-way street. Bad national law can always be amended or repealed. In Europe, it can’t. Manifestly, an issue such as bankers’ pay should not be decided by Europe, where it will be added to the “acquis communautaire” – that vast and growing body of laws and regulations which increasingly determines the way Britain is governed, as we’ve discovered with the horse meat scandal.