The Treaty of Lisbon, 2009, listed the ‘competences’ of the EU, those areas where the power to legislate had been conferred by Member States upon the EU.The relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom has been a recurrent theme in British politics in recent years. The impact of the long economic and financial crisis, the increase in support for anti-European parties, and a deepened feeling of alienation from the decision-making institutions in Brussels, have led many in Europe’s Member States to reevaluate their relationship with the EU. Against this backdrop, the Coalition Agreement in May 2010 stated that the Government would ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament. We will examine the balance of the EU’s existing competences and will, in particular, work to limit the application of the Working Time Directive in the United Kingdom. This commitment became the Review of the Balance of Competences between the UK and the EU announced by the then Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon William Hague MP.