European Union (Approvals) Bill [HL]

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, for so comprehensively introducing what is, ultimately, a very small measure. I do not intend to detain the House very long; I know that the next debate, on the work of the European Union Committee, will engage your Lordships much more than this Bill will.

We welcome both clauses, particularly on the depositing of historical archives. It will be very useful for researchers to be able to access information from one source—the European University Institute in Florence. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, will be aware of how important transparency is to the EU’s citizens and commercial enterprises. He will also be aware of the debate that the board of the European Central Bank has been having on the lack of transparency of that bank’s minutes on interest-setting decisions. Given how relevant this is to London as a financial centre, although we are not directly engaged with the European Central Bank, will Her Majesty’s Government enthusiastically support those of its members who are seeking greater transparency? This is the only major central bank that does not publish its minutes at the moment.

We broadly welcome Clause 1(2)(b) on the Europe for Citizens programme, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, pointed out, seeks to enhance understanding and to take action to build capacity for civil participation. Among the programme’s priorities, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, mentioned remembrance and European citizenship, which are profoundly important as we lead up to the centenary of the start of the First World War. He also mentioned democratic engagement and civic participation.

That is the area on which I would like to press Her Majesty’s Government. I declare an interest as the parent of a 16 year-old. Having seen the national curriculum’s GCSE programme and the entire content of the secondary school education programme, there is very little mention of the European Union. There is certainly greater emphasis in history, religious studies and so forth on historical events that have affected the European Union as we see it today, but the actual processes, procedures, decision-making, structure and organisation of European Union institutions are not touched on in any depth of knowledge at all. There are no courses at A-level that prepare candidates for European Union decision-making studies or employment in the EU. While this lies in the purview of national Governments, this Government have been profoundly aware for many years of the lack of United Kingdom participation in the EU Civil Service and the institutions of the EU, and the extremely low numbers of civil servants that find themselves working at EU level. Will my noble friend tell us how we expect to boost our influence within EU institutions when we do not prepare our young people in any meaningful sense to be able to understand what the European Union is about in terms of day-to-day life?

I have another point on democratic engagement and civic participation. As I was reading the programme’s lofty ideals, all of which I completely agree with, I looked at the terminology and the methods by which it is intended to appeal to civil society. It becomes evident that a group of bureaucrats of a certain age has dreamt up the programme, because it has no relevance to the way in which social media work and young people think, or to the communication means by which they engage with each other, irrespective of the remit of institutions. I shall give an example from page 6 of the programme. The Minister mentioned “Remembrance and European citizenship” and “Democratic engagement and civic participation”; he did not mention the third highlighted point, which is “Valorisation”. With the indulgence of the House, I shall explain what this means. It is described as,

“a horizontal dimension of the programme … It will focus on the analysis, dissemination, communication and valorisation of the project results from the above-mentioned strands”.

I was so impressed by this attempt at defining “valorisation” that I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as

“to give or ascribe value or validity to … by artificial means”.

That is profoundly important. All these programmes are top-down rather than bottom-up. They are guided rather than being spontaneous in any sense; anyone who has worked with civil society will know that bottom-up approaches are far more important. They do not speak to citizens in terms that enthuse them about the value of the European Union. While one commends the programme for what it is, if we in the United Kingdom are to challenge the anti-European bias in our media and public discourse, we will have to do better than this.