European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Lord Cryer

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend said that everyone here would approve of that; has he noticed that, as far as I can see, only two Opposition Back Benchers have bothered to come to the debate on this important subject?

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Yes, but it is the quality that counts.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

As the hon. Gentleman says, we have the cream of the Opposition here. The Opposition’s economic policy would be much more interesting if the hon. Members for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), and for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), were on the Front Bench, not the Back Benches.

You will be pleased to know, Mr Gray, that Confrontations Europe has a youth initiative called YES-EU!—Young Europeans Supporting EU!—and is engaging in a campaign aimed at the upcoming European parliamentary elections. We are talking about a budget line that pays for people to try to influence, with their pro-EU stance, the parties standing in those elections.

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[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I would not like to say that, because I am completely convinced that the Minister is 100% engaged with this regulation, and fully aware of past issues. However, I have been in meetings in which Members of the European Parliament—as I was then—sit down with staff of the European Commission and, indeed, member state civil servants to negotiate a trialogue that sets out—[Interruption.] No, it does not do that. It sets out to negotiate a deal at different stages, and one wonders what the political engagement with those civil servants might be, because when the deal is done it is done in that room at that very time.

However, that is by the bye. I have concerns about the Europe for Citizens line, and I hope that I have outlined them to the House. I certainly intend to press my amendment, and I very much welcome support for it.

[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.