European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I feel that I may have sparked another area of debate and discussion. I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mrs Main]

I am not trying to be unhelpful, but is the Minister saying that this is a bone that we are giving to the EU in the hope that we might get a bigger bone back in the future?

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not know what my hon. Friend’s definition of unhelpful is. I am sure that voting for an amendment that the Government oppose is not unhelpful. I am simply saying that this is a very small programme that costs us between £1 million and £1.5 million a year, and that the vast majority of the programme supports things that we actively should support, such as commemoration of the holocaust, or other areas that, if one were to be pejorative, might be described as innocuous, such as twinning celebrations.

The serious point is that many eastern European member states will use the programme to support their campaign to remain free and democratic nations as part of a free and democratic Europe. Given that the measure has been supported by all the other member states, I think that we in this House should support it and send those eastern European states a signal that we support the journey that they have taken towards freedom and democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

This is a dreadful Bill of which Her Majesty’s Government should be deeply ashamed. They should hang their head in shame at having done it. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, or the Department of entertainments, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd) called it, has agreed to something that directly contradicts what the Prime Minister said a year ago. We have a Prime Minister, a leader of Her Majesty’s Government, who says one thing and a Department for Culture, Media and Sport that brings forward a Bill to do exactly the reverse. The Prime Minister said he was against ever- closer union; the money that we are discussing will be spent on promoting ever-closer union.

The Commons, in its wisdom, is to contradict the Prime Minister. Does that show the proper control that the Government should have of their legislative programme, if Bills are introduced that make the Prime Minister’s words look like wormwood? Is that how the Government wish to treat the British people? Can we have trust in our politicians in this nation if the Prime Minister says one thing and his Ministers bring forth Bills saying another? Are we to feel that there is any movement in the Government’s policy towards reducing ever closer union when their Bills say the reverse and when the words, which are cheap, say one thing but the Acts of Parliament say another—and say that which the British people are opposed to? We have a review of competences to see whether there is the right balance, yet we increase the competences without having any review at all.

We have, by unanimity, agreed to spend money on promoting the ideal of the European Union, and we have had no apology for it and no defence of it other than the Minister saying that he does not much like it but he does not think it is a grand scheme and it might cheer up his mates in eastern Europe.

[Mrs Main]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Minister has just admitted that the Bill is a message to the European Union and its citizens, not a message to the British public about our intentions?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Minister.