European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

[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.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise that I missed the first minute of the noble Lord’s speech. I want to stress, first, that the history of Article 174 is one of British leadership. The regional development fund was set up by one of the first British Commissioners, George Thomson, and was designed to help poorer regions in Britain and Ireland in particular cope with the impact of joining the European Union—it is very good that two of Lord Thomson’s sons-in-law are in this House and taking part in this Committee, although I do not see either of them in their place. I recall clearly how he carried that through the European Community, as it then was, in the early 1970s.

The article as we now have it was inserted into the Single European Act by the British Government as one of its flanking elements, but it was then transformed by Margaret Thatcher because she committed herself to eastern enlargement—one remembers the Bruges speech and the point she made about bringing Prague, Budapest and Warsaw back into Europe. The regional development fund within the European Union became very much part of how we have helped to spread prosperity, and therefore stability, democracy and security, into those new member countries. It is worth noting that Norway contributes to the European Regional Development Fund and that in any conceivable deal which we strike with the European Union after we leave—if we end up leaving—it is likely that we will be asked to contribute in the same way. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, might say that this is dreadful because the European Union spreads conflict, but I think that the rest of us will agree that the European Union has helped to stabilise the former socialist countries of eastern Europe. One has only to move from Poland to Belarus to see how much difference it has made.

Now that we appear to be leaving, the question of what happens to this country and what reassurance the Government can give us about the future of regional development in it is important. The Prime Minister said when she came into office that she wanted to bring the country back together and to reunite this very polarised public we have had since the referendum, but let us remember that England has the deepest regional disparities of any country in Europe—the United Kingdom even more so—and that the areas which qualify for and benefit most from the European development fund in Britain are Yorkshire, the south-west, parts of Wales, the north-east and parts of Cumbria and Lancashire. Recent studies have suggested that Yorkshire and the north-east are the two regions which will suffer most from Brexit because our trade is most clearly across the North Sea, from Hull and Newcastle, and the damage will be severe. Can the Minister begin to give us some reassurance that the Government are alive to this issue and that, as they attempt to bring the country back together, as we hope they do, they will have an active regional policy to cope with the impact of Brexit?

I read the Yorkshire Post—published by a company that used to be called Yorkshire Conservative Newspapers—and the image one gets of views in Yorkshire from our media and gossip are: that we are now governed by a very Home Counties, southern-English Government; that the north is forgotten; that the northern powerhouse is a placard without much behind it; and that the spending in the north on infra- structure, innovation, schools in rural areas and elsewhere falls well behind what is given to government. I should have thought that might leave the Conservative Party very worried. In replying, can the Minister give us some assurance—and feed this back into the Government—that, as we move towards an apparently inevitable Brexit, the Conservative Government are thinking actively about the regional disparities we already have, are taking into account that poorer regions will suffer disproportionately from a loss of European regional funds and realise that compensatory action needs to be taken by the British Government to prevent that?

--- Later in debate ---

Post leaving the EU, we have an opportunity, and leaving the EU will allow us to develop policy in the funding programmes with the flexibility and innovation required truly to meet the needs of the UK and support our industrial strategy. That brings me to the United Kingdom’s shared prosperity fund, which has been specifically designed to raise productivity and reduce inequalities between communities across our four nations. Unlike structural funds, the shared prosperity fund will be cheaper to administer and much less burdened by bureaucracy. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is impatient to hear more about this, but we have already committed to consult on the precise design and priorities later this year. We will consult widely on the design of the fund and discuss with the devolved Administrations, local authorities, businesses and public bodies how the fund might work. That will give all interested parties the opportunity to contribute their views directly to the Government. As we look at where we can improve on current investment programmes, the devolved Administrations will have valuable lessons they can share with the Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Can I ask an additional question? Interreg is very much about cross-border schemes and co-operations. As we all now understand, there is one very important cross-border relationship, which we have somehow to maintain, between the United Kingdom and Ireland. Will the Government’s devolution of these funds back to national level include a specific Irish co-operation dimension?

[Baroness Goldie]

It will in as much as, post Brexit, the United Kingdom will work within each of its component parts, which obviously includes Northern Ireland. I anticipate that discussions would principally rest in that respect on the subject of the question that the noble Lord has raised.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Not necessarily with southern Ireland?

[Baroness Goldie]

I think that, in the first instance, as we look at how we will fund different parts of the United Kingdom, the primary discussions will be with those parts of the United Kingdom—they would have to be. That is without prejudice to the Executive in Northern Ireland, who I hope will be established. We will want to pay proper respect to that Executive when they are constituted and consider what they want to do. I would be very surprised if there were not a desire to have constructive discussions with the Republic of Ireland in the interests of trying to determine how best to address these needs, if there is a relationship. The Republic of Ireland, at that point, will be an international country separate from the United Kingdom, as it will be in the EU and the United Kingdom will not. We have to respect these new relationships and new boundaries.