Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Main Page: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]
Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am, in fact, the Minister responsible for culture, communications and the creative industries. They are a number of different matters, but they are all linked.
The sole purpose of the Bill is to support two draft regulations of the Council of the European Union. They both rely on article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which permits the adoption of a measure to attain one of the objectives set out in the European Union treaties but for which no specific power is given in the treaties, provided that it has the unanimous support of all member states.
Thanks to this Government, who passed the European Union Act 2011 to ensure that no treaty could be passed without a referendum, such measures must be approved by Parliament. Parliamentary scrutiny of European measures is a matter of lively debate at the moment, and I am delighted to see so many of my colleagues who are experts on European matters present in the Chamber this afternoon. I am also delighted that it is this Government who have given Members of both Houses the chance to decide whether to approve such measures. I note that the Bill was debated in the other place, which is renowned for its scrutinising abilities, for precisely 37 minutes. The German Parliament carried out similar scrutiny before approving the measure—its measures are similar to ours—although I am not sure how long that debate lasted.
Mr Cash
Is my hon. Friend aware that the Europe for Citizens programme could be construed as no more than a provision to enable grant-making for organisations that tend to be of a Europhile capacity? Hopefully it would be resisted by the Government on the grounds that it would be likely to induce propaganda for the purposes of European elections and the like.
Mr Vaizey
I do not want to get ahead of myself, because I must first cover the specific regulations. My hon. Friend is a lawyer and an expert on European matters. I am not here to defend every measure. For example, I note that one of the measures audited in 2013 related to supporting the “European Network on forward policies and actions for seniors in Europe”. With one in five Europeans already in their 60s, our take on old age needs reconsidering. That programme focused on older people in the European Union, not European federalism. I will address the Europe for Citizens programme, to which he refers. It is one of two regulations—I say this for the benefit of all hon. Members taking part in the debate—that will be approved by the Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
How does the Minister’s earlier example meet the test of subsidiarity?
Mr Vaizey
It is not a question of subsidiarity. The question of subsidiarity applies to the whole programme, which has been in place since 2007 and supports a number of measures. I will come to examples of the programme shortly.
Following my hon. Friend’s perceptive intervention, I hope he will indulge me for a few minutes while I deal with the first measure and see what interventions we have on that. The measure establishes a legal obligation on the European institutions to deposit their paper historical records at the European University Institute, which is based in Florence. Previously, European institutions have voluntarily deposited their archives at the EUI under contractual agreement, and the proposal is to make this obligatory. It is designed to provide long-term certainty that the archives will be preserved in accordance with recognised international standards at a single accessible location.
Richard Drax
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wonderful news if the EU were not archived?
Mr Vaizey
Speaking on a measure on archiving documents of European Union institutions gives rise to the possibility of many light-hearted comments. I have resisted making such comments, but that is in no way an indication that I would resist those of other Members about the interest, or otherwise, that these documents could engender when being read by future generations.
A 1983 Council regulation already obliges the European institutions to preserve and provide access to the historical papers once the records are 30 years old, when they would no longer be in business use. Europe’s Council, Parliament, Commission, Court of Auditors and Economic and Social Committee, and the European Investment Bank, currently meet that obligation by depositing their paper archives with the EUI on a contractual basis. The proposed legal obligation reflects those existing arrangements and will not change the point in time at which the public can access historical records or the place at which they can be accessed.
Making this practice a legal obligation will help to ensure transparency and scrutiny of the European institutions’ work, and it fits alongside this Government’s drive for greater transparency both at home and in Europe. We should all welcome a measure that allows for greater accountability around EU decision making, the more so because it will have no impact, financial or otherwise, on the UK’s own archives.
As the European Union moves towards digital record-keeping, the measure also provides that the European institutions should, where possible, make their records available to the public in digital format. In addition, the EUI is to be given permanent access to each institution’s digital archives to fulfil its obligation to make historical records accessible to the public from a single location once they are 30 years old.
The European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank will be exempt from the obligations under the proposed regulation, although they can deposit their records on a voluntary basis. The Court is exempt because of the large volume of records, most of which are case files often containing sensitive personal data that need to be quickly accessed to support its functions. The exemption of the ECB is due to its organisational autonomy and the fact that its historical records are subject to a separate 2004 regulation.
The measure will be financed by the depositing European institutions from within their existing budgets and so will have no financial impact on the UK. Hon. Members will be delighted to learn that the Italian Government have made suitable premises permanently and freely available to the EUI to ensure that the deposited archives of the European institutions are preserved and protected in accordance with recognised international standards. The European Council has published the text of this measure and has received consent from the European Parliament. It is therefore ready for adoption, subject to the agreement of hon. Members.
Let me move on to the second measure, on which I do not anticipate a great many interventions. It provides for the continuation of the Europe for Citizens programme for the period January 2014 to December 2020, building on the previous programme that covered the period 2007 to 2013. It is important to point out that there have been some crucial improvements to the programme. More effort will be put into monitoring and evaluating funded projects against published performance indicators and boosting the transferability of results to give a better return on investment.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend in his hope that there would not be too many interventions, but before he gets into how this will be improved, may I ask him to look at paragraph 4 of the document? It says that this is being introduced in order to
“bring Europe closer to its citizens and to enable them to participate fully in the construction of an ever closer Union”.
The Prime Minister said a year ago that he did not want ever closer union. Will my hon. Friend square the circle?
Mr Vaizey
It is important to look at the kinds of programmes that will be supported by this measure. It is also important to note that when one uses the phrase, “Ever closer union”, it can mean many things to many different people. Perhaps if I spend some time giving examples of the programmes that have been funded and those that might be funded, we can have a wider, almost philosophical debate on the issue.
Mr Vaizey
It is my hon. Friend’s fourth attempt and I think it would have been his third intervention, had I accepted it. I expect him to make several interventions during my remarks and I will take them at the appropriate moment. I also expect him to make one of his formidable speeches, for which he has become legendary in this House. With his indulgence, however, I will elaborate on the point I was making.
As well as highlighting the improvements in transparency and evaluation, I want to make the point that the commemoration element of the programme has been significantly increased. In the previous programme, commemoration was just 4% of the budget, but it now amounts to 20%. This is a serious point, because, of course, 2014 is the year in which we begin our commemorations of the great war, so I for one am pleased that the commemoration element of the programme will increase.
It is also very important—this is also serious—to point out that the commemoration element of the programme goes beyond simply commemorating the great war. It will include funding to commemorate the second world war—that is particularly relevant given the 70th anniversary of D-day this year—as well as the victims of totalitarian regimes such as Nazism and Stalinism, and, of course, the holocaust.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On my hon. Friend’s earlier point about ever closer union and what it means, is he saying, as has been said to this House before, that we should not pay attention to the detail of the document and that we should accept bland assurances that it does not mean what it says?
Mr Vaizey
What I am saying is that one should look at the kinds of projects that have been funded in the past and the kinds of projects we expect the programme to fund in the future. Hon. Friends may well disagree with the funding of some events, both past and future, while other hon. Members of a different political persuasion may disagree with the funding of others. That is the nature of a programme that funds a huge range of projects.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, during these times of a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe, anything that remembers what happened in the holocaust can only be a good thing?
Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend quite rightly achieves approbation from all corners of the House for his intervention. I know that the hard work he undertakes on these issues as a Member of Parliament is well recognised. It is a serious point that much of the programme’s funding supports issues relating to commemoration, which covers the holocaust, and some British organisations that commemorate the holocaust have received funding.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I suspect that the House probably feels that the United Kingdom is quite capable of providing its own recognition of the holocaust and the great war and that we do not need any help from Europe. At the start of his remarks, my hon. Friend said that the Bill had been debated in another place. I suggest to him that the bill that matters is that to the British taxpayer. Could he tell us how much cultural citizenship costs the UK taxpayer?
Mr Vaizey
In this debate, we will find that many hon. Members are incredibly well informed and know a lot about the issue. My hon. Friend’s intervention is the second that tempts me to jump ahead in my speech. It is important, however, to answer a direct question directly: the budget is €185 million. I will come on to the budget, because there are certain things to say about it at the right moment.
Richard Drax
On questions of percentages and budgets, I understand that 20% will go towards commemorations, but will my hon. Friend comment on the 60% for projects linked to the Union political agenda?
Mr Vaizey
I was about to say that I did not know hon. Members’ views on the European Union, but I should perhaps say that I do not know their views on twinning, apart from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who has just made his view quite clear.
As a constituency MP, I for one see that twinning brings great joy to my constituents. If you will indulge me for a minute, Madam Deputy Speaker, the market town of Faringdon in my constituency is twinned with Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe in France, and it intends to twin with Lipcany in the Czech Republic. The market town of Wantage is twinned with Mably in France—in fact, we even have a Mably way—and Seesen in Germany, and Didcot is twinned with Planegg in Germany and Meylan in France. May I use this opportunity to pay tribute to the late Terry Joslin, a Labour councillor in Didcot—he sadly died at the end of last year—who was very much at the forefront of Didcot’s twinning arrangements?
Mr Vaizey
I accept that point, and as a good Conservative, I am always in favour of anything that has no cost to the taxpayer. I also think that we all, as constituency MPs, know that when there is an opportunity for support, whether from the Big Lottery Fund or any other grants programme, we would encourage our constituents to apply for it, where appropriate.
Another example of the kind of programmes that are likely to be supported is shown by the recent grant of €100,000 to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which is a British organisation. It received the money last year to help European bodies understand how to run voluntary organisations. The rest of the budget will be spent on programme administration and the evaluation and dissemination of best practice between participating organisations.
Like its predecessor, the programme will be implemented through grants based on open calls for proposals and through service contracts based on calls for tender. To provide for the analysis and dissemination of the results, these activities will be supported by regular external and independent evaluation. Priority will be given to projects using new working methods or proposing innovative activities. An interim evaluation report on the implementation of the programme will be drawn up by the European Commission no later than the end of 2017, and a final evaluation report will be drawn up no later than 2023. The programme has no new impact on UK domestic policy. Such activities have been supported since the programme first began.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on the size of the budget of the programme compared with the size of the budget of its predecessor, and on whether the budget reflects the search across the European Union—supposedly—for savings for the taxpayer in these straitened times?
Mr Vaizey
I will certainly do so, but to put the answer to my hon. Friend’s question in context, it is important to stress that the Bill will have no financial effect on the UK Budget. Some might say, for the sake of argument, that the money could be better spent in the UK, but the fact is that it forms part of the European Union budget that has been agreed, so money not spent on this European project would be spent on a different one. I therefore take my hon. Friend’s intervention as an opportunity to remind the House that the Prime Minister secured a significant reduction in the European Union’s overall budget. In fact, I think it is the first time the EU has ever reduced its budget.
The original budget proposed for the programme was €229 million, which would have been a 7% increase on the budget for the 2007-2013 programme, which was €215 million, but I am pleased to say that, following the budget negotiations—otherwise known as the multi-annual financial framework—that figure came down to just over €185 million, which was a reduction of €44 million. It is also important to stress that the €185 million is spread over seven years and that we estimate the UK contribution to be about £2 million to £3 million a year. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.
Richard Drax
Would the hon. Lady agree that the more people know about how the EU works, the less likely it is to continue to exist?
Helen Goodman
As the Minister points out, that should be a reason for some people to support the programme, but actually I do not necessarily agree with the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for reasons I shall explain.
I have some observations and questions for the Minister about these two major themes in the Bill. As he has explained, EU documents will be archived at the European University Institute in Florence so that future historians can benefit from complete records. The Clerk of the House has explained to me that our own material is archived in Victoria Tower. Will the Minister tell the House—[Interruption.] Could he stop talking to his Parliamentary Private Secretary and listen to me? Would the EU institutions be able to make duplicates in vellum as we do in this Parliament?
The Minister said that the Bill does not cover the documents of the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. The ECB position is rather controversial, given our own decision, in 1997, to publish, after only six weeks, the meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee. Expectation management is an important part of monetary policy, so I wonder why we are not seeing the ECB papers in the same way. The whole exercise cannot be described as a measure to improve transparency, given the decision to keep everything secret for 30 years. Who decided that these documents should be kept secret for 30 years and why? My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), who sadly is not in his place, has commented on Mrs Thatcher’s approach to the miners’ strike, demonstrating how few people can fully understand the significance of papers when they are kept locked up for 30 years.
The aim of the citizen programme is to improve how citizens participate in and contribute to the EU by strengthening remembrance and common values and encouraging a broader engagement and debate. The budget is €185 million, so by my calculation about £7 million will be spent in this country—not, I would suggest, a vast amount. The Minister has said what he thinks we will contribute to the budget, but I wonder whether he can say how much of it he thinks will be spent in the UK.
As the Minister said, 20% of the money will go towards commemorating the world wars and victims of totalitarianism. The Government are spending some £50 million on commemorating world war one. If the remarks of the Secretary of State for Education and the decision to put Lord Kitchener on the £2 coin are anything to go by, the Government are embarking on an unnecessarily jingoistic approach, which this EU programme might usefully counterbalance.
I want to ask the Minister how the funds will be distributed. It is unfortunate that world war one appears only fleetingly for children in key stage 3, so a little more understanding can only be a good thing. Will the money for the commemoration of the world wars be distributed in its own channel, or will it be bundled up with the money the Government are spending directly and through the Heritage Lottery Fund?
As the Minister said, the major part of the moneys will be used on EU citizenship projects for learning and twinning. Since the major wave of twinning took place in the late-1970s, just after we joined the Common Market, and given that the EU now has 22 member states, it seems a good idea to give this initiative fresh impetus so that new relationships can be built across the Union.
Mr Cash
That is an extremely important question, to which the answer is zero: none at all. Perhaps the Minister would like to intervene in order to repudiate what I am saying, and to assure me that none of this money will be used for any propaganda exercises—that none of it will be given to think-tanks that are promoting the idea of the European Union—and to make absolutely clear that we are not, as a Government, supporting the promotion of propaganda for the purposes of political union in advance of European elections. The Minister is sitting with a Sphinx-like expression on his face. I suspect that he knows the answer, but is not terribly keen to give it to me.
Mr Vaizey
It is a poker face, actually, not a Sphinx-like expression. I will respond to my hon. Friend when I sum up the debate. There are so many Members in the Chamber this afternoon who are experts on this subject and who will want to make lengthy interventions to educate the House about the Bill that I do not want to stand in their way, given that I know I have a slot.
Mr Cash
There is another point, too. A very interesting statement, which I happen to know is true, was made under the aegis of the European Scrutiny Committee. In his letter of 19 November 2013, the Minister said that an agreement on the substance of the draft regulation had been reached by COREPER in March 2013. I need not spend too much time on that, because the COREPER problems are contained in our report, but the point is that the agreement to which the letter referred was ticked off by officials.
I am not denying that the Minister has come to the House and said that he endorses this, and the same situation arose in the House of Lords. However, I want to emphasise that our report, which has been supported by all those Members of Parliament, identified that process as a matter of concern, because it had been dealt with by officials in the first place and ticked off by them, and then along came the Government and agreed to it. We had recommended that the whole matter be dealt with in a European Standing Committee. Our recommendation has understandably been overtaken by events, in the shape of the Bill, but we remain deeply concerned about the way in which the money could be used.
I am always pleased to be able to be constructive, and to offer a tribute when it is required. I was glad to hear the Minister tell us—and I happen to know that this is true—that the amount of money in question started out as £229 million, and has been reduced to £185 million. I am glad he linked that to the reduction in the budget generally under the multiannual arrangements he described, but I would only make this point, especially on behalf of some on this side of the House: I put down the amendment that helped the Government to arrive at the decision that reducing the budget would be a good idea, because that was a unanimous decision that had been agreed to on both sides of the House.
Mr Vaizey
I am grateful to have the opportunity, with the leave of the House, to respond to the debate, which has been wrapped up by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). There was an element of disloyalty from my acting Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who said to me during the debate, “You’d better hope that you don’t follow him.” I think that that was a reference to the rhetorical qualities of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, who certainly did not disappoint. It is my sad lot to have to follow his excellent and perspicacious speech.
My hon. Friend pointed out that I have been without friends on the Front Bench for most of the debate. It is true that we invited Justice Ministers to wind up the debate, because archives are obviously an important element of their portfolio, but for some reason we found that none was available. It is therefore down to me, with the leave of the House, to wind up the debate.
It is very rare for a Minister to open and close a Second Reading debate—[Interruption.] Apart from two weeks ago, it is a very rare event. [Interruption.] It happens all the time, according to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Here I am, however, closing a debate that I opened. Let me begin by asking the hon. Gentleman not to intervene from a sedentary position. Frankly, if he has something to say, he should come to the Dispatch Box and say it. [Interruption.] He is trying it again, but let me move on.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on her response to my opening remarks. She raised several points that I want to address. In relation to archives, she asked whether European institutions can deposit their documents written on vellum. That is not part of the regulations that we are debating and approving. It is of course welcome that she takes a traditionalist view of how documents should be written and archived, but it is rather sad that when any spending opportunity presents itself, she seizes the moment.
It is true that the European Central Bank will not deposit its documents in the archive. Its situation is similar to that of the Bank of England, which does not deposit its archives at the National Archives. To be frank, the hon. Lady’s point was more to do with the general issue of whether the European Central Bank is transparent enough, which is nothing to do with today’s debate.
The hon. Lady asked how much money will be spent in the UK. Many hon. Members debated the issue of how much is likely to be spent. Normally, we would expect to see a return on our investment of about 5% to 10%. Any money to support commemorations for world war one, for example, would not be part of the Government’s main programme of commemoration, but to support programmes involving different countries across Europe.
The hon. Lady said that I am not doing well enough on stopping the export of objects that have been legitimately purchased. I remind her that our export ban system has been in place for 60 years. The delay to the Bill was simply to do with finding parliamentary time.
We heard excellent speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), and my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and, of course, for North East Somerset.
I must say that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone made a fantastic contribution. It was generous to me, and it showed off his remarkable knowledge of the subject from his 30 years of looking at European issues.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber described the Bill as “gentle”, “timorous” and “meek, mild and inoffensive”. I think he was making a plea to hon. Members not to be cruel to the Bill, but to shepherd it through with the utmost care and attention. He mentioned that the funds in one of the regulations supported the European Movement, of which he is the UK president and which, of course, was started by Sir Winston Churchill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud made a very good point when he reminded us that this debate was happening because of the Conservative party and the Bill we passed, in the teeth of opposition from Labour, to give the House the opportunity to scrutinise European legislation. It is shocking, when we see the House filled up with people ready to scrutinise European legislation, that Labour still refuses to give the British people a say on their membership of Europe. It is only by voting Conservative that the British people will get a say, in a referendum, on whether we should remain a member of the EU.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry welcomed the scrutiny, but asked for a rebalancing of the project. He is the chairman of the Royal and Derngate theatre, and it is welcome to see him in that position. We will always find examples, as he did, of funded projects with which we disagree, but I know, as someone responsible for funding the Arts Council—I do not want to start another debate—and looking at the distribution of lottery funds, that we will always find funded projects with which we disagree and many projects we think should be funded that are not. That is in the nature of it. The process for getting funding will involve an open application system, and we should encourage people to make applications, should the House support the regulation, as there is no reason, in principle, why they should not receive funding.
This has been a lively, enjoyable and informative debate. It remains for me to conclude on the most important issue, which is of course the wedding anniversary of the hon. Member for North East Somerset. It falls on St Canute’s day. It is said in Scandinavia that good St Thomas brought Christmas and the evil Canute took it away. The death of Canute started a minor European civil war, and it is important to remember that this fund will commemorate some horrific events in Europe that are worth commemorating—the totalitarian nature of Stalinism and Nazism and the holocaust, as well as the carnage of the great war.
But I am running out of things to say. I will not refer to the Venetian ambassador. I simply commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.