Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived
(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
I beg to move,
That this House considers that the draft Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (European Union Document No. 15865/12 and Addenda 1 and 2) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in Chapter 3 of the Twenty-second Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 86-xxii); and in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol (No. 2) of the Lisbon Treaty on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European institutions.
This is the third time that I have moved a motion on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, is the inspiration behind this motion and I am pleased to support it. I welcome the ESC’s report on the European Commission’s proposal and I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss it on the Floor of the House.
The Government share the Committee’s view that the Commission’s proposal is not consistent with the principle of subsidiarity. The proposal would establish a new instrument: the fund for European aid for the most deprived. It is intended to replace, from 2014, the European Union’s food distribution programme for the most deprived people. The current programme distributes food stocks such as butter, milk powder, beef, sugar, rice and cereals, and in 2012 the budget has a ceiling of €500 million.
At present, 20 of the 27 member states participate. The main recipients are Italy, Spain, Poland, France and Romania. The UK has not participated since 1998, after which the previous Administration withdrew from the scheme. Both this Government and the previous Administration have opposed Commission proposals since 2008 to extend the programme and expand its social dimension. The UK has consistently set out its concern that the programme does not comply with subsidiarity.
Nothing in the Commission’s proposals changes our position. As the Committee points out eloquently in its report, the Commission has not provided a convincing justification of the need for EU action. Indeed, in many ways the new proposal is even more objectionable than the current programme. It will be used not only to provide food aid, but to purchase and distribute basic consumer goods. Whereas the current scheme is optional, the new scheme will be obligatory on member states and they will be required to provide match funding of at least 15% of the costs.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I understand the Minister’s case that this could perfectly well be undertaken by national Governments, but do the Government intend to give any help to the network of food banks that is growing at a rate of, I think, three a week up and down the country and for which there is a clear need?
Mr Hoban
Food banks are undertaken by the voluntary sector. I will come on to the ways in which the Government provide support to people on low incomes or who are benefit recipients, in order to demonstrate why we do not believe that this EU programme is right. Our principal objection, of course, is one of subsidiarity, echoing the ESC’s comments, but also reflecting the previous Government’s stance when they withdrew from the scheme.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
To pick up on the Minister’s point that the voluntary sector makes a choice to step in, we now have up to 300 food banks across the country under the umbrella of the Trussell Trust, which estimates that it will have fed about 250,000 people in our country by the end of this financial year. Does he think that it is right that the voluntary sector has to step in to provide people in this country with emergency food aid?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady is a prolific tabler of questions on this matter and I have answered one or two for her today. This initiative is undertaken by the voluntary sector. The previous Government ignored the existence of food banks. Even at the height of the recession, when long-term unemployment doubled, the previous Government simply ignored them and pretended that they were not there. This Government acknowledge the existence of food banks. They play an important role and enable people on low incomes to get food, toiletries and other basic needs, and to use their incomes or benefits for other purposes. We also signpost people to food banks, but what nobody has done yet—this point has been made on a number of occasions—is analyse who uses food banks and why.
Mr Hoban
I want to make progress. This debate is about European proposals to spend taxpayers’ money and, if I remember rightly, the Labour party seems very keen to reduce the EU budget. We look forward to hearing what the right hon. Gentleman has to say. I do not know whether he is suggesting that we should enter this programme and that he supports obligatory participation. Perhaps he will clarify his position now.
Stephen Timms
Does the Minister accept that the number of people using food banks is bound to go up further in the coming 12 months?
Mr Hoban
I am not going to predict that. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has missed what has been happening recently. He should recognise that there are record numbers of people in work and that unemployment is falling. The number of people on out-of-work benefits has fallen by 199,000 since May 2010. I am not going to engage in making predictions, but I would have thought that he celebrates the fact that more people can look after their own families and that more people who want to work are getting into work, meeting that basic aspiration that we all want people to share.
The right hon. Gentleman did not say whether his party will sign up to the Commission’s proposal and whether they want to spend more taxpayers’ money in Europe. Hopefully he will mention that in his remarks.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister on taking a firm line on this matter. I am glad that he is opposing this regulation. I notice that all matters have to be accounted in euros, which does not seem to be appropriate for a country that still has its own currency. What does he think the outcome is likely to be in the debates and discussions in which he puts our case?
Mr Hoban
At the moment, discussions are taking place in the working groups. One discussion has taken place so far and I believe that there will be another in the new year. There is currently a blocking minority that is opposed to the regulation. A number of member states that are concerned about the EU budget and the multi-annual financial framework are keen to oppose the proposal. Of course, the money will come out of the structural and cohesion funds, so it will not be spent on other ways to improve the economy across Europe.
Mr Hoban
I will make a bit more progress. I am sure that the hon. Lady has some interesting views on subsidiarity that she will want to share a little later.
The Government’s view has not changed. We are unconvinced of the merits or appropriateness of the proposal. The principle of subsidiarity, which is enshrined in article 5 of the treaty on European Union, states that the EU should act collectively only when
“the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States”
on their own, but can “be better achieved” by action on the part of the Union. We consider that the measures to assist the neediest members of society, as set out in the proposal, can be better and more effectively delivered by individual member states through their own social programmes, not at an EU level. Member states and their regional and local authorities are best placed to identify and meet the needs of deprived people in their countries and communities in ways that are administratively simple and efficient.
In the explanatory memorandum, the European Commission states that the ability of member states to support those who are at the margins of society has been diminished and that social cohesion is threatened by fiscal constraints. We recognise the need to protect the most vulnerable in society and are taking action to do so. However, as I have said, there is nothing in the proposal that could not be organised and financed by member states. The Commission provides no convincing argument for why it is necessary to superimpose a European scheme. The solution must lie with the member state, not at EU level. Member states have that responsibility and must take it. The Commission may argue that the response of member states to these issues is inadequate or that some member states make use of the food distribution programme. However, the Commission does not make the case that the situation is the same in all member states. There is, therefore, no justification for making the fund mandatory for all member states.
Kate Green
In a debate on food poverty a few days ago in Westminster Hall, which was called by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) made much play of the fact that food poverty was being caused not, this Minister will be pleased to hear, by the actions of the Government—although some of us were sceptical—but by rising food and commodity prices around the world. Is that not exactly the kind of issue that is susceptible to collective European solutions, particularly when this country is seeing a rising number of people, including working people, having to access food banks because of the Government’s failure to act?
Mr Hoban
I am not entirely sure what European action the hon. Lady thinks would tackle that problem. We do need to examine the regulation of commodity markets, which is happening in connection with MIFID II—the second markets in financial instruments directive —at the moment. However, European Governments intervening to buy up food stocks might not be the most helpful action. Those with long memories, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), will acknowledge that the source of the programme in question was the intention to tackle another problem—the wine lakes, butter mountains and so on. European intervention perhaps causes as many problems as it is intended to solve.
In justifying its position, the Commission points to the Europe 2020 strategy and its headline target of reducing poverty and tackling social inclusion. However, as the European Scrutiny Committee indicated in its report, the proposal was not envisaged when the Europe 2020 strategy was devised, nor does the existence of an EU target mean that action must be taken at EU level. In any case, the EU already has instruments to strengthen cohesion in the form of structural funds. We believe that EU cohesion policy should contribute to tackling poverty and the European social fund programme should contribute to helping disadvantaged people into work.
We are also concerned that the proposal does not represent value for money and would be burdensome to administer. Using EU structural and cohesion fund processes to deliver the instrument in question would lead to heavy and costly administrative burdens on member states and partner organisations. The structural and cohesion funds are there for very different activities from the new fund. They do not buy and distribute food and consumer goods. The new fund will require different, and probably more burdensome, procurement, monitoring and auditing processes. Not only is it inconsistent with subsidiarity, it will also use resources that would be better deployed at national or local level.
If the fund were removed from the proposals, the UK could argue for an equivalent reduction of €2.5 billion in the EU budget over the seven years of the multi-annual financial framework. Given the Labour party’s view, I assume it would support that.
In opposing the Commission’s proposal, I reiterate that the Government strongly support measures to tackle poverty and social exclusion at member state level. In the UK, we have a full range of benefits and tax credits in place to cover financial needs for those in and out of work. We are investing £400 million in the current spending review period in helping local authorities prevent and tackle homelessness, and we are committed to eradicating child poverty. We are taking a new approach to tackling the root causes of such problems, including worklessness, educational failure and family breakdown. The EU structural and cohesion funds are better used in tackling the root causes of poverty than its symptoms.
On food aid, the Healthy Start scheme provides a nutritional safety net in the form of vouchers for basic healthy foods and free vitamin supplements for pregnant women and children under four from disadvantaged and low-income families. Initiatives such as FareShare and FoodCycle are good examples of essential work that charities are doing to support communities. We therefore believe that member states are capable of taking such action to help the most deprived, and we are not convinced that the European Union is better placed to take such action.
We agree with the European Scrutiny Committee that the Commission has provided no convincing argument that the proposal meets the principle of subsidiarity, and I thank the Committee for its work and for proposing the motion for debate.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s position and look forward to hearing the European Scrutiny Committee’s views in due course.
First, we need to be absolutely clear that there is a large and growing need in the UK for the type of help that the fund would be designed to provide. The Minister mentioned FareShare a moment ago, and I notice that it gets a couple of mentions in the impact assessment of the fund, for example on page 100 of the bundle. As he rightly said, FareShare has never obtained any funding from the EU because the UK has not taken up the funding that is in place. It is slightly confusing that it is mentioned in the impact assessment, because that implies that it has been a beneficiary, but it has not. My understanding, however, is that €50 million is earmarked for the UK from the existing fund, none of which is currently handed over to the UK.
There is certainly a rapidly growing need for the service provided by FareShare and food banks such as those supported by the Trussell Trust, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) referred to a few minutes ago. The latest annual report from FareShare showed that it spent £1.6 million last year. As those who are responsible for FareShare say, a small fraction of the €50 million earmarked for the UK would enable it to transform what it is doing. FareShare provides food to 800 charities and, through them, to almost 40,000 people a day who would otherwise not have enough to eat. It is a wholesale operation supplying food to charities on the front line, and the food that it is distributes is sourced from food retailers and manufacturers, for whom the food is surplus to requirements.
A few minutes ago, the Minister said that everything was absolutely fine and that there really are not any problems in the UK: there are more people in work than ever before, and so on. However, the most recent annual FareShare report says:
“More people are suffering hardship and needing food support than ever before. Demand for our food is rocketing.”
The Minister, for reasons that I entirely understand, was unwilling to accept that the demand on food banks will go up in the next 12 months, but it will undoubtedly do so. Indeed, only yesterday, he sent me a written answer to a question that I tabled about the impact of the benefit cap in London. The information that he supplied was that, in London alone, 27,600 households will lose income when the benefit cap takes effect in April, and of those, 10,800 households will lose over £100 a week. There is no doubt at all in my mind or, I suspect, in the mind of any objective observer that the need for the kind of service that FareShare and food banks provide will only increase in the next few months.
The number of food banks supported by the Trussell Trust, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, is about to top the 300 mark. Three new food banks are set up every week, so the number has doubled over the past year. They are all Church-based, and involve Church members and non-members in their governance; there are 3,700 churches and 3,000 schools involved at the moment. As my hon. Friend pointed out, a quarter of a million people will receive food from a food bank in the course of this year. It is a remarkable and impressive initiative, but it is also a terrible indictment that so many people in Britain cannot afford basic food, and have to go to a food bank to obtain it.
Luciana Berger
We are the seventh most industrialised nation, and the number of people accessing emergency food aid has exploded. It was 26,000 under the Labour Government—I make that point, because it was 26,000 people too many—but I wish to reinforce the point that my right hon. Friend has just made. By the end of the year, a quarter of million people will have had to go to a food bank. If Members go to meet the people who go to a food bank they will see that they do not go in with smiling faces—they go in hanging their heads in shame. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the Government should do everything in their power to make sure that no one needs to access emergency food aid in the UK?
Stephen Timms
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful and telling point. As she will know, food banks work hard to minimise the loss of dignity involved in going to a food bank. For example, they often give out food in supermarket carrier bags so that it does not look as if people have been to a food bank. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a terrible indictment of the state of our nation that a quarter of a million people have to do that this year, and the number, I confidently and regretfully predict, is bound to go up over the next few months.
Why has that terrible thing occurred? It is, of course, difficult to survive on benefits or on a low working income, and the Government’s plan to uprate benefits by less than inflation will undoubtedly make matters worse over the next few months—I have spoken already about the effects of the benefit cap that will take effect in April. The plight of those who lose more than £100 a week—as many will when the benefit cap comes in—will be desperate, and a surge of people will be driven to food banks, able to feed themselves and their families only as a result of the help they find there.
The Trussell Trust—this returns to the Minister’s direct responsibilities—makes the additional point that of the 250,000 recipients we have heard about this year, 100,000 are people for whom jobcentres have been too slow in making a payment or made a mistake. Food banks say that more people are turning up with no money because they have been sanctioned by Jobcentre Plus. Often, they have no idea why they have been sanctioned, and know only that they have got no money and must get food from the food bank.
Luciana Berger
My right hon. Friend will know that if someone goes to a food bank, they must tick a box giving the reason they have to access emergency food aid, and more than 40% say it is because of delays to their benefit payments. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that in an article in The Guardian, Ministers said they aim to ensure that 80% of recipients get benefits within 16 days? Sixteen days is long enough to wait for people who have no cushion or money at all, but what about the 20% of people who have to wait for more than 16 days? Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Interventions should be brief and one at a time. The hon. Lady has made her point.
Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As well as delays there is the problem of mistakes and people being wrongly sanctioned. Friday before last I met a young man in my constituency who has been sanctioned and told that he will lose benefits for 14 months because he is attending a residential course delivered by the Prince’s Trust. An agreement between Jobcentre Plus and the Prince’s Trust means that people on Prince’s Trust activities are not sanctioned if they are unable to sign on while on a residential activity, but in that case—and, I fear, in others—the agreement is not being properly implemented by the jobcentre.
Luciana Berger
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and I hope not to intervene on him further. I have one more point for my final intervention. The Minister said that he welcomed the number of people who are in work, but we heard today that if people who access working tax credits call his Department’s phone line—I know this because my office called today—they are told that they have to wait three weeks for the form, and that when they get it back they must wait at least two weeks for it to be processed. Those are people in work who depend on additional funds to support them. Does he share my concern that although the Government are keen to see people in work, those are the very people who are being crucified?
Stephen Timms
That is an alarming report and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for passing it on. That matter will be on the Minister’s desk—[Interruption.] I beg his pardon; it will be on a desk in his former Department in the Treasury. There are worries—we have heard reports today—about delays in answering the phone at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and I hope that my hon. Friend’s point will be addressed.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The problem is not only about delays in payments but about the complications of the system and changes in people’s circumstances, financially and otherwise. Such things all contribute to the problems for those claiming housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance, income support and so on. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the issue is not just about the speed of the process, but about making the system easier for people?
Stephen Timms
Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. One thing that worries me is growing reports of jobcentres taking a trigger-happy approach to sanctions. People do not know why they have been sanctioned; all they know is that their money is suddenly taken away. The network of jobcentres is the Minister’s direct responsibility.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Is the right hon. Gentleman arguing that, instead of sending a reasoned opinion on subsidiarity to the EU in respect of emergency aid, we should ask the EU to take over our social services budget?
Stephen Timms
I will come promptly to subsidiarity, which the hon. Gentleman properly asks me to address, but it is right first to set out the scale of the need for the kind of aid that, it is envisaged, would be supported through the fund.
The big need that exists is being addressed by organisations such as FareShare and the Trussell Trust network of food banks. There is absolutely no doubt that that need will rise in the coming year. However, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the question is whether funding through the EU is the best way to organise the provision of that help. The European Scrutiny Committee, of which he is a member, makes the valid point that there is no reason why the support cannot be delivered through a national initiative rather than by the EU—I agree with the Minister’s point on that.
Setting up a fund at EU level is costly and bureaucratic, so I sympathise with the Committee’s concerns, but the problem is that the UK Government are not providing any such support. I therefore have some questions for the Minister and want to press him further. Does he accept that food banks and others provide a vital and indispensible service, and that without them tens of thousands in Britain would not have enough to eat in 2012? Given the changes that we know are coming in the welfare system over the next few months, does he accept that the problem is bound to get worse? To what extent are the Government interested in what organisations such as FareShare and food banks must do? Will he confirm—I am confident that this is true—that there is currently no UK Government support for them? I believe that local authorities have been able to help in some instances, but local authority funds are being tightly squeezed, so that source is diminishing.
Will the Minister explain why the UK does not take up the €50 million share of the existing EU food distribution programme? That is not a partisan point, but a genuine inquiry—I was part of a Government who took the same view as the Minister, although the problem was a great deal smaller at that time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree has pointed out. No doubt there is a downside of taking up that aid, but it would be helpful if the Minister could explain what it is.
Is it not a bit rich of the UK Government to argue against the new programme on the ground that they could do the same thing perfectly well—they rightly point to the principle of subsidiarity—if they in fact have no intention of doing so? If the fund is set up—as the Minister has indicated, that could happen despite UK objections—will he consider making the UK share of the fund available to FareShare and others that do such a vital job?
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
To paraphrase President Hollande, with whom I have no doubt those on the Opposition Front Bench are in agreement, a Euro handout is not just for Christmas, but for life.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) pointed out, subsidiarity is the issue in this debate. I could spend a great deal of time debating this, but the European Scrutiny Committee’s report sets out some of the aspects in more detail. The Government have set out their arguments in the explanatory memorandum and the Minister has spoken, so it seems to me that on this occasion it would be more appropriate to deal with the question of subsidiarity than to attempt to deal with the questions that arise regarding the relationship between the member states themselves and the United Kingdom.
A reasoned opinion is a new procedure provided for under the Lisbon treaty. It provides a mechanism for challenging Commission legislative proposals on the grounds of subsidiarity. In a nutshell, it means that national Parliaments have eight weeks, from the publication of a proposal, to submit a reasoned opinion. If such opinions represent one third of all the votes of national Parliaments, the Commission has to reconsider its proposal. The deadline in this case is midnight Brussels time on 26 December 2012, which is why the debate is taking place now.
I am glad to read in the motion that the Government agree with the Committee’s proposals. I was also extremely glad to hear the shadow Minister effectively say that the Opposition agree with the principles that underpin our reasoned opinion. The motion before the House is to approve the draft reasoned opinion, which is set out in the annex to chapter 3 of the report, and to instruct the Clerk of the House to forward it to the presidents of the European institutions. That is the formality.
The purpose of the draft regulation is to establish a new fund for European aid to the most deprived with, as the Minister said, a proposed budget of €2.5 billion for the period 2014-2020. I am bound to point out that those years reflect the period of the multi-annual financial framework on which a number of us voted recently, with respect to the European budget, saying that it should be reduced. The object in this instance, however, is:
“to alleviate poverty and material deprivation in the EU by supporting national schemes for the distribution of food products and the provision of basic consumer goods for the personal use of homeless people or children. It would replace an existing EU Food Distribution Programme…in place since 1987”.
The new fund will be based on the EU cohesion policy and resourced from the structural funds.
With respect to the draft reasoned opinion, we conclude that the proposed legislation breaches the principle of subsidiarity for four reasons. The Commission says that there is uncertainty about the ability of some member states to provide the social investment needed to prevent further fracturing of social cohesion, but it does not demonstrate that all member states are in the same position. Furthermore, there is no evidence about which member states are unable to provide this investment. The draft regulation would, however, bind all member states.
Secondly, the Commission has not provided sufficient justification for EU action on the basis of the Europe 2020 strategy—we go into that in more detail in our report, which is available to the House. A principal objective of the proposal is a desire for a highly visible EU funding instrument to mitigate negative perceptions of the EU’s contribution to economic and financial crisis. The Committee argues that such anxieties, whether founded or unfounded, are not a legitimate basis for EU legislation.
I would argue that the answer to alleviating poverty and preventing the difficulties being experienced in member states lies elsewhere. No one can doubt that the difficulties in many member states—youth unemployment running at over 53% in Spain and Greece and vastly increased unemployment among young people and others in all member states, with one or two exceptions—are the result of the economic policies that have been pursued under the existing treaties. The answer lies in growing small and medium-sized businesses. The taxation then taken from their profits could be ploughed back into the relevant part of the public sectors in each member state—including in this country—to provide the kind of help that the Government here have rightly indicated they will provide in order to alleviate poverty, where it is necessary to do so.
The question of whether these anxieties are founded or unfounded is not a legitimate basis for EU legislation. For EU supranational intervention on poverty and social exclusion in member states to be justified, there must be evidence of a problem that cannot be satisfactorily addressed by action at national level in all member states, but this evidence is simply lacking. I am glad to note that both the Minister and the shadow Minister agree with that proposition, and I repeat that the answer lies in growth, although how we get that growth is the subject for a separate debate.
Another problem is that the rule of law, which is the basis on which the much-vaunted aspirations of the EU are meant to be based, is consistently being breached. I could give many such examples; we have reported on them in the past. There is article 122 in respect of the European financial stability mechanism, there are the breaches of the no-bail-out clauses, the failure of the rule of law in respect of the stability and growth pact and the 25/27 decision that the Prime Minister vetoed but which is still subject to a legal reserve. There have been many other instances and they are continuing.
The principle of subsidiarity, which is embedded in the treaties, is meant to mean that, where matters should be dealt with at member-state level, that is where they should be dealt with, and the EU and its institutions should not arrogate to themselves the alleged right to legislate or impose burdens on member states in contravention of the legal requirements prescribed by the treaties, one of which is subsidiarity. It so happens that in the Lisbon treaty member states agreed to this procedure for reasoned opinions, which is a way of challenging a breach of the rule of law. For precisely that reason and in the light of the arguments I have set out, we put forward this reasoned opinion.
There simply is no basis in existing legislation to justify the use of this €2.3 billion for the purpose described by the European Commission. The Commission’s impact assessment states:
“European financial support can demonstrate the direct solidarity of the Union with the poor people, thus taking up on the broad request by European citizens.”
It is difficult to understand what that is supposed to mean in practice. It is just a generalised description, rather than an analysis of the use of the power for the right purpose. I am bound to ask the Minister, therefore, whether he thinks that the cohesion funds—resourced as they are by member states—should be used to
“demonstrate the direct solidarity of the Union with the poor people”
in those member states. On the use of expressions about demonstrating direct solidarity with the poor people, I am bound to say that, yes, people are being seriously adversely affected, but we should be asking what the real cause of that is, and whether this is the right way to try to solve the problem. Those generalised expressions of anxiety are not the way to run the European Union.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the most extraordinarily condescending language for people who are on very high salaries and paying very low taxes to be using?
Mr Cash
I could not agree more, and I would love to go down that route. I will not do so tonight, but the overpayment of civil servants in the European Union is a scandal.
Does the Minister believe that there is evidence of a broad “request by European citizens” for this type of supranational financial support? From what he has said, he clearly does not. The Commission’s impact assessment also states:
“Currently more and more social stakeholders and EU citizens perceive the EU as a threat for their personal and collective protection.”
It goes on:
“Action at European level is required, all the more so, as a lack of social cohesion would hinder the Union's further development and undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens.”
In other words, this aspiration is based on the fact that the Commission wants to create a perception that the European Union is helping people, and it is then calling for a vast amount of money to justify that perception. In a way, this is an exercise in legitimised propaganda.
The Committee found that statement startling on a number of levels. Does the Minister agree with the Commission that the EU is perceived as a threat to the “personal and collective protection” of its citizens? Does he think it legitimate for this type of humanitarian funding to be used to reinforce the EU’s legitimacy? This is almost akin to Soviet propaganda.
A constant complaint by our Committee is that the Commission does not pay sufficient attention to the need to confirm that its legislative proposals comply with the principle of subsidiarity. I have given the House some instances of breaches of the rule of law. What kind of Government does the Commission purport to run, if it breaches the rule of law whenever it suits it to do so? When it was breaking the rules on the European financial stability mechanism, for example, Madame Lagarde came out of a meeting and said, “We’ve violated all the rules because we want to preserve the euro.” The thinking, which is very dangerous, seems to be: “Providing we can use the power that the member states have given us to get what we want, it does not matter whether we can justify our actions according to the rule of law or the principle of subsidiarity. We’re going to do it anyway, and we’re going to justify it by talking about people’s perceptions.”
It is no wonder that people like me get up repeatedly—like pestering wasps, as I said to the Prime Minister the other day—and try to ensure that we keep the European Commission under surveillance and control. That is precisely what the European Scrutiny Committee is doing. We are ensuring that these matters are properly looked at, and I am delighted that the Government are going with us on this occasion. In this instance—believe it or not—the word “subsidiarity” is not even mentioned in the Commission’s explanatory memorandum. Will the Minister give us his assessment of the Commission’s assertion that the proposal does comply with subsidiarity? Does he agree that, in order to warrant supranational action, the Commission must show that the provision of emergency aid in some member states is undermining social cohesion in others, and that there is a genuine cross-border element involved?
I am arguing the case on subsidiarity, never mind on the justification of the arguments on the merits of giving money. It is an utter, complete and devastating tragedy that people all over Europe are resorting to using food banks. I sympathise with the concerns of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) about those very people. I do not have any problem there. It is one of the reasons why I spend as much time as I can on matters relating to international aid in countries throughout the world and in the Commonwealth. I am concerned about these people, but we cannot use this sort of legislative framework because of the misuse to which it is being subjected. So does the Minister think that the Commission has proved the existence of this cross-border element?
Mr Cash
I am delighted to hear that. This is where it gets tricky for us as a Parliament. We generally agree that this is not the right thing to do and I believe that the Opposition agree with that in terms of subsidiarity, although they have expressed their view about the question of the merits. The problem is that the number of reasoned opinions on this proposal will fall far short of the minimum required to oblige the Commission to reconsider. However, in the opinion of the Committee, that does not mean that a reasoned opinion of the House of Commons is without meaning or consequence.
Finally, will the Minister tell us whether—and, if so, to what extent—the Government plan to make use of the reasoned opinion in the Council negotiations on this proposal. As I said to the Prime Minister on another subject, it is difficult—he is between a rock and hard place. There are dilemmas, but we as a Committee have a job to do, which is to point out where the subsidiarity has been breached and to present a reasoned opinion. What really troubles me is that we do our job and look to other member states that are constantly berating us for our so-called “attitude” towards the European Union. However, when there is an absolutely clear-cut breach of the rules that they have set themselves, they turn round and say, “Well, we listened to what you said. We are not going to enter into an argument with you about whether you are right on your reasoned opinion”—they cannot; there is no way that could possibly be justified—and then they say, “But we are still going to vote for it.” That is the way to destroy the European Union, and they are doing a pretty good job.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
As so often, the European Union finds itself in these positions essentially by accident. If we look at the documentation, we see that this proposal would replace the existing EU food distribution programme for the most deprived, which has been in place since 1987. That was put in place when the common agricultural policy was building up butter mountains and milk lakes—and, rather excitingly, wine lakes—and it was thought that it would be a good idea to distribute them to member states and the people within them rather than allowing them to rot or having to pay large sums for storage. I cannot remember anybody getting any of the wine out of the wine lake, but that problem went away when the basis of subsidising the CAP was changed and there was a move away from all the payments relating to production. Production fell to be more in balance with demand, so the lakes and the mountains dissipated.
Once the EU as an organisation has its hands on a particular power—[Interruption.]—or piggy bank, it is reluctant to give it up. It sees that it has this power that is no longer of any use because the intervention stores in member states cannot be used to provide food for the needy, so it comes up with a scheme—one that will cost €2.5 billion of our money—to provide a means of distributing that food in deprived member states. It then comes up with the reasons to justify it.
It is worth noting on page 11 of the documentation the justification in the Commission’s explanatory memorandum. It states:
“EU action is justified on the grounds of Article 174 (TFEU) which provides for the Union to ‘promote its overall harmonious development’ by ‘developing and pursuing its actions leading to the strengthening of its economic, social and territorial cohesion’, and on Article 175 (TFEU) which specifies the role of the EU structural funds in achieving this objective and makes provisions for the adoption of specific actions outside the Structural Funds.
EU-level action is necessary given the level of poverty and social exclusion in the Union and the unacceptable diversity of the situation among individual Member States, further aggravated by the economic and fiscal crisis, which has led to a deterioration of social cohesion and lessened the chances of achieving the Europe 2020 Strategy’s objective in relation to the fight against poverty and social exclusion.”
There we see the heart of the matter.
Having bankrupted its member states by making them tie themselves into an overvalued euro, the European Union now says that people are poor and suffering as a result, and that we—the European Union—must therefore look after them. That is like shooting someone in the leg and then ringing for an ambulance. It is a most unsatisfactory way of carrying on, and it does not remove the offence of shooting someone in the leg in the first place. It is, in its way, deeply dishonest, troubling and bordering on wicked that the European Union should force such great austerity on Portugal, Ireland, Spain and, in particular, Greece so that grandmothers in Greece cannot afford their housing, and then come along with a scheme that will give them a little bit of money. Although €2.5 billion of our money is a lot to us who are paying into Europe, it is not a huge amount in the grand scheme of expenditure across member states. It is a little bit of money to spend on a propaganda exercise to persuade member states that things are not as bad as they seem.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I should like both hon. Members to return to the specific points that we discussing this evening. The scope of the debate is the subsidiarity issue as outlined in the proposed reasoned opinion, and that is what we should be discussing.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very glad that you have returned me to this absolutely key point.
Amendment X to the United States constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, provides for all powers that are not specifically designated for the United States to be reserved to the states themselves. What do we have in Europe? We have the vague term “subsidiarity”, which means that if in an impossibly short time a sufficient number of member states lodge an objection with the European Commission, it may, out of its benevolent generosity and kindness, decide to reconsider its proposals. This is what we are doing: we are saying to the European Union, “We think that what you are doing is wrong. We think that what you are doing is so fundamentally wrong that it should be opposed, and that it is indeed a scandal. We think that what you have done to member states is ruin their economies and then give them back €2.5 billion of their own money.”
The document states:
“European financial support can demonstrate the direct solidarity of the Union with the poor people”—
my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) quoted this as well—
“thus taking up on the broad request by European citizens.”
Well, I do not like being a European citizen anyway. I think that it is an affront to be called such a thing. I am a subject of Her Majesty, and long may I remain so. However, I cannot imagine that anyone in this country, whether he or she accepts the term “European citizen” or not, really wants the EU, having crushed nations, then to give them crumbs from the rich man’s table. I am therefore delighted that Members on both sides of the House support the reasoned opinion.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House considers that the draft Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (European Union Document No. 15865/12 and Addenda 1 and 2) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in Chapter 3 of the Twenty-second Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 86-xxii); and in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol (No. 2) of the Lisbon Treaty on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the presidents of the European institutions.