European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

Finally on Scotland, there is the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, of which Scotland has been allocated €107.7 million. These projects include 180 fishing vessel modernisation projects and other schemes to help with marketing, research and to develop ports. The EMFF helps fishermen in the transition to sustainable fishing, which again is a very important transition. It supports coastal communities to diversify their economies when fishing is no longer able to sustain them. It finances projects that create new jobs and improve quality of life across European coasts, and it makes it easier for applicants to access financing. If Members would like more information about the EMFF, they can find it on the European Union website. It would then become clear to Members, even to members of the Government, that the European Regional Development Fund, the stabilisation fund, the fund for rural development and the maritime and fisheries fund are vital in providing assistance. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, is shaking his head.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

It is our money.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is the constant refrain from the leavers. We heard it all through the referendum campaign: “It’s our money”. It is money from all the European countries that comes in according to their ability to pay and goes out to different parts of the European Union according to their needs, and rural areas, transition areas and less developed areas are those which get it. But that is not the argument here; we have had that argument. It has been made and we can have it in another place.

Wherever it comes from, that money is within the European Union budget at the moment and is then allocated to these projects in different parts of the United Kingdom. We are asking for an assurance—we need a guarantee—that, if we leave the European Union, this money will go to the same projects and be funded by the United Kingdom Government. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us that guarantee; such projects will otherwise have an uncertain future. People’s livelihoods depend on them; people who have put their lives into developing them are now faced with uncertainty. The only way in which they can be given some certainty is if the Government accept my amendment or something like it, and make sure that the money that they currently get from those European Union funds will come in future from Her Majesty’s Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I can tell the noble Lord and, indeed, the Minister that there will be a probing amendment on paragraphs 3 and 5 of Schedule 8. It has been tabled today and will be on the next Marshalled List.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

The group that we are dealing with is not actually mine but, with the leave of the Committee, I will respond to the inquiry. In light of the reference to the probing amendment, the appropriate step would be for us to consider that amendment and determine what response we shall make to it. If I am in a position, in light of that amendment, to write to the noble Lord ahead of Report and elaborate on our position, rather than responding by way of a government amendment or something of that kind, I will do so.