European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bob Stewart and Lord Cryer

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer]

I was not going to speak, but I thought I might as well have a go since I am here. I feel inspired by the words of the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) who moved amendment 4, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. The key paragraph is that

“expenditure under the programme may be used only to fund education about and reflection on the Holocaust, armed conflicts and totalitarian regimes in Europe’s history”.

Amendment 3 in the name of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is also perfectly reasonable. However, particularly at this time of year with Holocaust memorial day when the work of organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust is in full flow, it is worth remembering that there are now fewer and fewer holocaust survivors. A number who survived the death camps came to east London, where my constituency is, and that generation is now disappearing. There are ever fewer of them going into schools, as they do in my constituency, and as they do in many schools in many constituencies represented in this House, to talk about what happened to them and their families.

The amendment seems perfectly reasonable, although I would prefer it if decisions on where those resources were spent were made by national Governments, not by the European Union, since we were all involved in that conflict and in liberating the camps in 1945.

[Bob Stewart]

In this 100th anniversary of the first world war, would it not be entirely appropriate for Europe to commemorate collectively the disaster that happened between 1914 and 1918, and some of the money from this budget line could be used for that?