European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Charles Kennedy Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)]

Although we have just passed the auld Scots new year, this is the first chance I have had to congratulate you on your new appointment, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the context of another debate that is going on outside this place, which is not unrelated to Europe in some respects, it is good that a Scot has been elected by her colleagues to such a prominent and important UK constitutional position. Long may that capacity continue in the United Kingdom.

We are talking about another Union today, however. The matter of the United Kingdom draws the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and me together, but that other Union has forced us apart for 30 years. I shall not echo his concluding remarks about the question of a veto. Were that to be established as governmental and Commons practice, he would want to apply it even to something as gentle, timorous, limited and constrained as this European Union (Approvals) Bill. That would certainly vindicate my view that his election to the chairmanship of the European Scrutiny Committee was akin to putting King Herod in charge of a maternity ward. Indeed, he has proved that in his attitude to this generally meek, mild and inoffensive measure that the Minister has put before the House tonight.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Actually, such a veto already exists. The measure that I like to call “Bill’s Bill” would not even apply to this. I think the right hon. Gentleman followed us through the Lobby on the EU legislation that gave us a veto on the Bill we are discussing today. So, timorous though it might be, we already have the ability to veto it.

[Mr Kennedy]

I gather from the hon. Member for Stone’s speech that we are going to face a Division on the Bill’s Second Reading, so the House will have an opportunity to decide. The Minister will be aware of the presence of some notable evergreens who remember the days, and particularly the nights, of the Maastricht saga in this House. He will know that, on this Bill, he has the backing of the Government and, I would imagine, of a swath of the parliamentary Conservative party. He also has the backing of Labour, as the official Opposition, and I think I am correct in saying that he has the unanimous backing of the Liberal Democrats, although I never seek or aspire to speak for them in any leadership capacity or in an ex cathedra manner.

Before the Christmas recess, I raised a question with the Deputy Prime Minister, my party leader, who was standing in for the Prime Minister. I pointed out that there could be quite a difference between Government rhetoric on Europe and the reality. The Bill is interesting because, on this occasion, the rhetoric and the reality are as one. The hon. Member for Stone is correct—I have read the correspondence—to say that the Minister pointed out in the early stages of this measure that the Government were not pleased about what was then a projected percentage increase in the available budget, and that they would seek, through negotiation, to push that sum in the opposite direction. I congratulate the Government on their act of positive engagement at European level, which has achieved exactly that. Those cost reductions are to be welcomed, and the rhetoric of the Government has matched the delivery. That makes it all the more easy for people such as me to support the Government in the Lobby on this issue. We have also supported the Bill in the Lords, as my noble Friend, Baroness Falkner, made clear.

I do not wish to dwell at all on the established practice of the European University Institute being based, located and accessed in Florence and that now being given legal status as a result of this measure. However, I want to say a word or two about the second half of the Bill, which deals with the Europe for Citizens programme, where I wish to make a contribution not on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, but in a personal capacity on behalf of the European Movement, with which I have been associated for a number of years—I have had the privilege and pleasure to be its UK president. As the Minister knows, the European Movement is all-party and, most significantly, as I always say, non-party in its composition. It has been with us, in this country and elsewhere on the continent, since the formation of Europe itself—the political Europe in the aftermath of the second world war. Over the decades it has made a notable and distinguished contribution to the dissemination of knowledge—genuine knowledge, not propaganda—through schools, local voluntary organisations and so on.

The European Movement suffered in the era of the Blair Government through the launch of Britain in Europe. As we all know, Britain in Europe was not so much a case of “Waiting for Godot” as of waiting for Gordon; it was a two-act play in which nothing happened, twice. The Prime Minister assembled his pro-European forces and marched them to the top of the hill on more than one occasion, and absolutely nothing came of it. The group that suffered most during that period of raised expectation followed by zero was the long-standing European Movement, which was rather eclipsed by Britain in Europe and has been clawing its way back ever since.

The European Movement is central to the second part of the Bill, because its entire raison d’être fits ideally with precisely what the Bill talks about. The characteristically excellent Library research paper states that in an explanatory memorandum of 26 January 2012, so just under a year ago,

“the Government approved of the proposed simplifications to the programme’s administration”—

the Europe for Citizens programme—

“and observed that the programme reflected, and could potentially support, the UK Government’s aims and programmes, in particular the Big Society agenda and Positive for Youth. There were also potential benefits to UK civil society organisations, local authorities and organisations, and grassroots sports and culture projects.”

The constitution and raison d’être of the European Movement fit ideally within what the Government have pointed out, but here comes the rub: the European Movement used to enjoy a direct subvention from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That came to an end in Mrs Thatcher’s days, and perhaps that is no great surprise. What is perhaps a wee bit more surprising is that nothing was ever restored in the long years of the Labour Government that occurred later. I raised the issue with both Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Brown but to no avail. It is not a matter for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It has, in the past, been a matter for the FCO, although if DCMS wished to enter and make good the breach, I can assure the Minister that it would be welcome to do so. I hope that he will take this opportunity to point out that there is a bit of an irony that the European Movement is often offered practical support, through the use of facilities, by many European consulates and embassies within the UK yet receives nothing by way of practical support from our own FCO.

When we are passing a Bill such as this, with the very things that the Government are highlighting approvingly and the potential that this Bill can bring, it does seem a bit ironic, if not perverse in the extreme, that the European Movement is getting overlooked in this way. Wearing that hat, I make a plea to the Minister to draw the matter to the attention of his colleagues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to look for a little bit of largesse as we reach the closing stages of this coalition Parliament.

[Mr Cash]

I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman, not least because, from his perspective, the European Movement does its job. However, is he not over-concerned about this matter? Surely, under these arrangements, he should expect the European Movement to get the moneys, because that is made clear under the Bill. I may not believe that we should pass the Bill, but if it does go through, as seems likely, I believe that the European Movement will benefit. Is he not being a bit over-anxious?

[Mr Kennedy]

I am less anxious now than I was just before I accepted that intervention. If the European Movement makes an application to such funds, I will be able to quote an opponent of the very measure that gives rise to such access as well as supporters such as the Minister and me. I hope that that might help its prospects as and when it makes an application. For the first time ever in nearly 30 years in a European debate, I can look at the hon. Gentleman, regard him as my hon. Friend and say, “D’accord”. I am most grateful to him.

In conclusion, one thing that always bedevils the European debate is the meaning of vocabulary. The classic is “federalism”, which has a very different meaning the minute we cross the English channel to what it has come to mean not least in the tabloid press in this country. Another example is the term “ever-closer union” on which we have touched. Of course it has its antecedents with the initials ECU, which was used in a slightly different context several decades ago.

As we are seeing in the Scottish debate, and as I think we can see in the European debate—these measures can assist in this process—the words “ever-closer union” could be more appropriately replaced with the words “ever-closer understanding”. The more that the practical implications, particularly for citizens’ rights, in the second part of this Bill create a climate of more accessibility and greater, ever-closer understanding, the better it will be.