European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

It seems to me that the European Movement must have used some of the £1.5 million received from the European Union to attack a specific political party in the run-up to European elections. It strikes at the very core of democracy, if one side of the argument has access to very substantial sums of money in political terms. The Minister has said that it is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, and that may well be true, but for a British general election, €20 million of European Union money is a lot.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Since the hon. Gentleman seems so concerned about big money in politics, why is he supporting the Government on the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I almost always end up on the same side as the hon. Lady. She makes the point that I was just moving on to, so I am deeply grateful to her. It seems to me eccentric of Her Majesty’s Government to go to so much trouble to pass the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, which I support thoroughly, to control the spending of third parties in our elections, when—suddenly, lo and behold—the European Union, whose law is superior to British law, can come along with a whole pile of money for groups outside the control of the British Parliament or the British people and can unlevel, unbalance and skew the playing field in favour of one side, particularly in a referendum vote. Indeed, that has already happened.

We know that 60% of the programme goes to the advancement of the European ideal, but that ideal is perverted to include even the most modest things, such as twinning. For a charity to be able to spend any of that money, it has to sign up to the political objective, so however harmless it is in any other respect—however modest its aims, and however apolitical it is—it has, in one respect, to be a pro-European charity to apply for the money. The programme goes a stage further, however, in that it hands out money directly to participants in a political process, and that undermines what we as democrats are trying to do in this House.

I tabled amendment 3 to try to prevent that from happening, if it is really the Government’s wish to push ahead with the programme. If the Government have any sense, they would abandon the whole scheme. They should remember that they have a veto, and they should try to find some backbone.

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[Mr Redwood]

Yes, some vetoes were surrendered in the Single European Act. I advised against that at the time and, for once, my advice was not accepted.

[Helen Goodman]

Did you vote for it?

[Mr Redwood]

I did not vote for it because I was not a Member of the House when the legislation was passed—I am not that old. I was against giving up the veto then, but the former Prime Minister accepted it because it was in very limited areas. It has subsequently expanded into a huge number of far more important areas, which has led to the passions and frustrations that we hear about every day from our constituents in e-mails and letters and in conversations on the doorstep.

There is an added reason why the veto should be used with respect to this proposal, as has been explained eloquently by the three Members who have made speeches already. The European Union is presuming to intervene in formerly democratic politics in our countries and to build on the technical definition of “citizen” that has been embedded in recent treaties with the idea that people’s primary loyalty should be to the European Union and not to their member state. With these programmes, it is seeking to disrupt loyalty, accountability and sovereignty in its member states still further. This is propaganda on the taxes and expenditure that we do not need at a time of austerity. It is unforgivable that money is being raised from our hard-working constituents and passed to the European Union for propaganda.

I urge the Committee to reject the Minister’s proposal. I urge the Committee to stand up for the British people and for the proper use of taxpayers’ money. I urge the Committee to oppose propaganda on the taxes. I urge the Committee to say to the Government, “When you have a veto, for goodness’ sake use it, because we do not have enough vetoes left.”

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[Sir Richard Shepherd]

I am with my hon. Friend on these matters.

The dissolution in the sense of ourselves in the past 30 years that I have been in Parliament is not entirely down to me. The disillusionment is partly down to the grinding of the EU; its false prospectuses; its lies, lies and lies; and its belief in the objective of creating the dream of a Monsieur Delors or a group of European politicians of the earlier part of the second half of the last century. It is not my dream. It was undoubtedly the dream of a part-generation of British politicians. It has been so encompassing and encased in bonds of steel and iron that Ministers and shadow Ministers sit on the Front Benches not even thinking it necessary to say, on a small matter such as the Bill, “Why? Stop it. No. Don’t go on.”

I urge hon. Members not to pay the Danegeld or to support that message. They should reject it. They should let the Government know that the purpose of Parliament is to ensure a proper negotiation on competences and what we are about. Do not give money to the Danes because they will only come back for more.

[Helen Goodman]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I should declare an interest: I am half Danish—my mother is Danish and my father is English.

The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who has moved amendment 4, was right to remind the Committee that today is Holocaust memorial day. As well as remembering those horrific episodes, it is extremely important that people learn from them. In my constituency, I have found that holocaust education has been particularly useful in the learning of young people who might be tempted to get involved with racist organisations. They have learnt that what begins as a small piece of prejudice can grow into something very dangerous indeed.

Her Majesty’s Opposition will not support the hon. Member for Daventry in the Lobby this afternoon. He is of course right that archiving is important and uncontroversial, and that remembrance is extremely important, but it is not adequate to say that we do not want to educate our citizens on the institutions of Europe when they have a role in taking part in elections to the European Parliament. They need to understand what powers it has and does not have, so that they are able to make intelligent decisions. I am sorry, but I am not convinced, as I said on Second Reading, that knowing more will mean that people will be uncritical. I think that if they know more they will perhaps understand the case for some of the reforms.

I wish to remind Government Members that in this country we have a serious problem with the low participation of young people in democratic processes. In the previous general election, only 44%—fewer than half—of 18 to 24-year-olds voted, while 76% of those over the age of 65 voted. I would have thought that it is common sense that people need to understand the institutions they vote on and the influence they can have by doing so. Government Members have as keen an interest as anybody in educating people, particularly young people, so that they participate and take these matters seriously.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

Not for the first time, the hon. Lady puts her finger on the nub of this debate. She is supporting exactly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Sir Richard Shepherd). There is a direct causal link between the reduction in election turnout and the transfer of sovereignty from our UK Parliament to the supranational body and the growth in power of the pseudo-nation of the European Union. That is why so many people, including young people, are bitterly cynical about the power they have with which to influence politics. Decisions that affect their lives every day are taken by that supranational body and not by our sovereign national Parliament.

[Helen Goodman]

I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view. However, there are some organisations and institutions in the modern world that have an interest in undermining democracy. There are large global corporations that do not wish to be accountable to any legal framework, whether European or domestic. It is vital that we build a sense of responsibility and citizenship among our citizens, particularly our young people.

[Mr Redwood]

If the hon. Lady is such an advocate of democratic engagement on Europe, why will her party not give the British people a vote on whether they want to stay in it?

[Helen Goodman]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that is a completely different issue and is not what we are discussing today. In fact, I am not even sure whether dilating on the matter would be in order, and I do not wish to cut across the Chair.

It is sensible for there to be education on the EU institutions, particularly for young people. The themes of the projects listed in the introduction to the unnumbered regulation are not as hon. Members have described. They are:

“education, vocational training and youth, sport, culture and the audiovisual sector, fundamental rights and freedoms, social inclusion, gender equality, combating discrimination, research and innovation, information society, enlargement and the external action of the Union.”

[Mr Andrew Turner]

Is the hon. Lady saying that European law permits anyone, on either side of the Europe debate, to get money from Europe, or is it limited to people who are in favour of Europe?

[Helen Goodman]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow, I will come on to that point and ask the Minister some questions about the process and scope for amending the regulation.

Hon. Members should find article 2 of the regulation encouraging. Its aim is to

“encourage democratic and civic participation of citizens at Union level, by developing citizens’ understanding of the Union policy making-process and promoting opportunities for societal”

and intercultural

“engagement and volunteering at Union level.”

That is not the vision some Government Members are presenting.

I turn now to amendment 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I think he did some philosophy at university. He is trying to prove a negative here. There is no way the Government can say whether a piece of expenditure would influence elections to the European Parliament. It is logically impossible to do what he asks. It is important to remember that the money is not for political parties.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Will the hon. Lady therefore explain the European Movement putting out a leaflet specifically attacking UKIP in an election period? That is party political funding from the EU.

[Helen Goodman]

With the information available to him, the hon. Gentleman cannot show that money from the European Parliament funded that leaflet. As he knows, the European Movement has a whole array of sources of funding.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Let us try something else. I have here a list of organisations that received money in 2007 for the purposes of fostering European citizenship. How about the European Liberal Forum, which received €107,000 that year? Was that political?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is not pertinent to the discussion, because the question is this: how will money be spent in the future? The Minister should tell us what measures he will take to prevent it from going to such political organisations. On Second Reading, I asked him many questions that I hope he will answer this afternoon. What will the application process be? Who will get the money? How can we spread it across the whole country, not just organisations that have been habitual beneficiaries, so as to spread an understanding of Europe? Government Members display such understanding in great measure, but they are much better informed about the mechanisms of the EU than most people in this country, and I do not understand why they want to keep this knowledge to themselves. It is profoundly undemocratic.

I agreed, however, with the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) when he raised the issue of money going to non-EU member states under the theme of enlargement and work. It seems to me that whereas we have settled European policies on, for example, education and culture, enlargement is much more contentious.

That brings me to my next point. I am not going to ask the Minister what the process would be if he wanted to veto the regulation, because it is patently absurd to say that because we have a veto, we should use it. There are other matters relating to Europe that I think it would be far more important to veto than this. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are tempting me down a path down which I think it would be wrong for me to go. What I want to ask the Minister is this: what would be the process for amending the regulation, rather than rejecting it in its entirety? We need to get on with some of this work, and we do not want too much delay.

[Mr Vaizey]

There is no process for amending the regulation. We would have to vote it down and then start again.

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to the Minister for that information.

There are weaknesses in the regulation, such as the one identified by the hon. Member for Bury North, but I think it entirely reasonable for us to have a process allowing voluntary organisations to bid for funds so that people can learn about the European Union. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has provided extremely positive feedback on the grants. It refers to

“Support for participation and democratic engagement. People’s wellbeing…employment, social cohesion and sustainable development. Impact of EU policies in societies”.

What could be more neutral than that? The NCVO also refers to

“Exchange of expertise…Building capacity of voluntary and community organisations.”

Conservative Members claim to support the big society, but now they seem to want to vote down money that would promote it. Finally, the NCVO refers to

“Establishing links between local authorities and community organisations in different countries”.

Although there are weaknesses in the regulation, I think that the positives outweigh the problems raised by Conservative Members.

I should like the Minister to answer these questions. What will the application system be? How will he ensure that the money goes to groups throughout the country, and is not concentrated on small and highly politicised groups? I should also like to know whether he has discovered the answer to the question I asked him earlier about the archiving: why are we locking up the European documents for 30 years—which is what we do with documents in London—and who will have access to them in the meantime?

[Mr Vaizey]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.

We had a lively Second Reading debate on the Bill last week, and I commented at the time that the Chamber was full of the House’s most prominent European experts. I think it slightly unfortunate—although I do not blame anyone in particular—that today’s debate falls at the same time as the annual parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. Members will be aware that the Council of Europe advertises itself as an organisation consisting of 47 countries and 820 million citizens. I gather than some of our leading experts on Europe are in Athens, debating matters of European import. It is interesting that their expertise is being put to good use.

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[Helen Goodman]

I do not share the Minister’s Panglossian view that our debates today and a fortnight ago have provided effective scrutiny. As he pointed out, it is impossible to change the regulation. When this House deals with other legislation, we can amend it. It would be better if we strengthened the scrutiny of proposals that come from Europe when they can still be changed and when there can still be negotiation. As I am sure the Minister knows, the European Scrutiny Committee has produced a report with a number of suggestions, some quite sensible and some not so sensible, on how we could improve our scrutiny processes. It would be far better if we scrutinised European legislation at a much earlier stage than has been the case today and two weeks ago.

We have reached a consensus about the importance of archiving European documents and putting aside resources to remember the holocaust and other serious human rights abuses that have occurred in Europe, particularly in the past century. Her Majesty’s Opposition believe that it is vital to address the apathy and loss of interest in political processes, particularly among young people. We belong to the European Union, even though many Conservative Members wish that we did not. As long as we belong to it, it is important that people use their rights. This is an opportunity to allow people, especially young people, to learn more about the European Union, which might allow them to exercise their rights.

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend puts her finger on an important point in talking about many young people’s disillusionment with and alienation from the political process. Would it not be more important to engage young people if they could vote for the people who make their laws in the European Commission and throw the rascals out? At the moment, those people are appointed in a very undemocratic way.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend tempts me to discuss reform of the European institutions. There is a case for reforming them. Perhaps if more young people had a better understanding of how they work, more of them would take the view that he set out. However, we are in the European Union and we have European elections coming up. It is important that people understand the significance of those elections.

I thought that it was a little churlish of the Minister not to describe the application process more clearly, not just for my benefit, but for the benefit of those who are watching the debate. None the less, that is a small point and I shall not divide the House on Third Reading.