Wednesday

This morning our EU committee examining money laundering and the financing of terrorism met for two and a half hours, completing its examination of the first draft of our report. Its a good committee, with Members from different Parties working together well.

Obviously I can't say what's in the report until its published in a few weeks' time, but when you look at an issue like this where the maximum cooperation is necessary across frontiers, you do wonder how anti-Europeans think we could manage without the EU.

Layer, I joined in a question about teenage school dropouts, asking the Minister whether she had any new ideas about reducing non-attendance by children from the Gypsy and Traveller community, which damages their chances in adulthood. Surprisingly, when the GRT community suffers disproportionately from low secondary school attendance, the subject wasn't in the Minister's brief. She promised to write to me.

Disaster at the ping-pong table! JW beat me 2-0 yesterday in two hard fought games, the first time that's happened for weeks. With a 1-1 draw last Sunday, he's now five games ahead at 119-114.

I'm signing off now until I come back from Ankara on Sunday.