European Social Fund (EUC Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I welcome this report and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, for her excellent speech in introducing it to the House. As a new boy, I have seen this afternoon two excellent examples of the work of the European Union Committee, which is, unfortunately, one of the few examples in the United Kingdom of an attempt to contribute to intelligent debate on the future of the European Union. It is a pleasure to participate in this debate.

I would like to make three points: first, to support the plea of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for the Social Fund to be retained; secondly, to argue that its objectives should be aligned more closely with the Europe 2020 strategy; and, thirdly, to make the case that its delivery in the United Kingdom should be more flexible. I would like to tackle those points in reverse order.

First, on delivery, I read in the report the representations of the third sector, which feels that it is difficult to access Social Fund money for projects. I also read the views of the Local Government Association, which points out that current ESF management and delivery is far from perfect. The fact that ESF money is managed by a range of different government agencies means that local authorities find it hard to help prioritise the fund towards local need. The LGA goes on to give its view that councils, groups of councils or local enterprise partnerships should set the ESF strategic direction and ensure that it delivers outcomes that are relevant to that need. I would like to support that.

However, the local economic partnerships were but a gleam in the eye of the right honourable Eric Pickles when this report was prepared so it could not have considered that point. It seems to me that there is a strong case for the use of the Social Fund to be devolved to local level so that we get away from this silo delivery mechanism through the Department for Work and Pensions. That would fit in with the efforts of the Government to take forward the principle of Total Place so that all the various bodies that have something to do with helping the disadvantaged to gain skills—Jobcentre Plus, the Skills Funding Agency, the FE colleges, the police, probation, social work and all those sorts of groups—can combine their efforts in programmes on the ground. I ask the Minister what his view is of delivery and whether he sees a radical change away from the kind of centralisation that is pursued under the present arrangements.

Secondly, on objectives, the Social Fund is perhaps a case of not too little subsidiarity—which we debated earlier this afternoon—but too much, in the sense that member states throughout the Union basically use the money available under the Social Fund to supplement what are essentially national programmes. There is not real EU value added additionality. A big problem for the EU is that our national leaders put a lot of effort into devising things such as the Lisbon strategy, which is now the Europe 2020 strategy, which sets a comprehensive set of objectives for the European Union, but they do not ensure that there is a link between those EU objectives and processes—the guidelines, the monitoring mechanisms, the reports on member state actions that are produced in Brussels, the open method of co-ordination—and the way that the EU budget is spent. If there is to be more purchase over what happens in member states, there has to be that link between the EU budget and EU-agreed policies. When we look at the Europe 2020 strategy, we see that there are several items—youth on the move, new skills for new jobs and the platform against poverty—for which the Social Fund could be used.

I would like to draw particular attention to the platform against poverty. The Prime Minister signed up to this at the June European Council. For the first time, EU poverty targets will involve help to get the hardest-to-reach people into work as one of the methods of addressing poverty. If we sign up at EU level to these targets, surely we can also sign up for the proposition that the Social Fund should be retained and should be used in order to take forward those targets. What is the Government’s policy on that?

That brings me to the future of the Social Fund. I am a strong supporter of the existence of the structural funds and I do not agree with the view that HM Treasury had under the previous Government that we ought to try to get rid of them. I remember getting quite upset about that when the proposition was initially put forward. Just as I was about to send off some intemperate memo to the Prime Minister to say how wrong I thought that was, one wise official told me, “Oh, don’t worry, Roger, let them go and argue it. They’ll get nowhere because the Germans will never agree to it”. The Treasury thought that it had found some friend in the German finance ministry who thought that the structural funds should not be applied to the richer member states. Then they came up against the reality of German politics—remember that Mrs Merkel represents a constituency in the former East Germany, where these funds are important in demonstrating to the German taxpayer that they are getting some value from their contribution to the EU. I doubt that there is much real prospect of getting rid of the structural funds, but I would like to hear that from the Minister.

I would also like to hear a recognition from the Government that there is a real UK national interest in supporting the structural funds, in particular the Social Fund. That national interest is that we very strongly want to see a better functioning single market in Europe. However, the only way that we will win political consent for that objective is if there are accompanying social policies that deal with the problems of winners and losers in that enhanced single market.

These are my views: we should retain the Social Fund; it should be more closely aligned with EU policies; at local level, its delivery should be more flexible; and, we should also get away from the centralisation that characterises what now happens. With that, I commend this report.