European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2019
Debate between William Cash and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir William Cash
I have indeed seen it, and I recall that a number of extremely abusive and obscene remarks were made with reference to the United Kingdom during that documentary. I also remember some of the chocolate soldiers, if I can put it like that, in the European Commission, who were delighted when they thought that the withdrawal agreement might go through, saying, “At last, we’ve created the circumstances in which the United Kingdom will become a colony.” That, of course, is completely true. I do not want to be diverted into all those arguments, but this is about who governs the United Kingdom, and these 27 other member states are not doing anything to help us or the Government, and certainly not the Prime Minister or our national interest.
I would add that the Cooper-Letwin Bill, which was authorised to proceed under a business motion agreed to by a majority of merely one, overturns the parliamentary governmental system to which I referred earlier, which is protected by Standing Order 14. That was done by an unwarranted constitutional revolution. As I said to the Leader of the House on the morning after the Prime Minister’s abject surrender to the other 27 member states and the EU Commission, the whole thing stinks. Incidentally, in fairness to the Leader of the House, she, together with eight other members of the Cabinet and, I understand, seven out of 10 in the Whip’s office, originally opposed the extension of time, in the national interest.
That day, I asked the Attorney General whether, under the ministerial code, his advice had been sought on that issue, but received the stock-in-trade answer that neither his advice as a matter of fact nor its contents are disclosed. That afternoon, I challenged the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House. I pointed out that she had broken her promises—made more than 100 times—not to extend exit day and that she was undermining our democracy, Northern Ireland, our right to govern ourselves, our control over our own laws and our national interest. I then called on her to resign. All this encapsulates the importance of annulling the regulations, for reasons that I will now give, and which I have set out in my submissions to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which, in fairness, had not had the opportunity to see them on 11 April.
On 11 April, the Government introduced the statutory instrument with a full explanatory memorandum—which I am sure the Minister read very carefully—setting out their legal assertions as to why the instrument purported to be lawful. As Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee—I speak in a personal capacity and on behalf the 82 Members of Parliament who signed my motion to annul the instrument—I presented my submission on 24 April, after the recess, to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, in which I objected to the basis on which the Government sought to justify the legality of the statutory instrument in the explanatory memorandum.
Paragraph 1.2 of the explanatory memorandum states:
“This memorandum contains information for the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.”
On 1 May 2019, with the statutory instrument and the Government’s explanatory memorandum before it, the Joint Committee declined to draw special attention to the statutory instrument, which sought to delay exit day until 31 October, stating simply that:
“At its meeting on 24 April 2019 the Committee considered the Instruments set out in the Annex to this Report, none of which were required to be reported to both Houses.”
There were 20 such unreported instruments, including the one before this Committee. The role of the Joint Committee, whose membership includes Members both of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, is to assess the technical qualities of each instrument in its remit and to decide whether to draw to the special attention of each House any instrument on one or a number of important grounds. Those include that the instrument imposes a charge on public revenue—I already have referred to the fact that it is costing the British taxpayer £7 billion to move the date from 29 March to 31 October.
Other grounds include doubt about whether there is the power to make the instrument at all, that it appears to represent an unusual or unexpected use of the power to make it, that its form or meaning needs to be explained and that its drafting appears to be defective. In my view, it would have been appropriate for the Joint Committee to draw to the special attention of each House this profoundly important historic document, but it chose not to do so. The Joint Committee decided that it would not make a special report on this vital question, nor did it publicly respond to my submissions, which were based upon a detailed legal analysis of the highest order. According to the 59th report of the 2017-19 Session, the Committee drew special attention to only one of the instruments reported. My arguments in disagreeing with the Government’s explanatory memorandum are based on a number of important issues, as a matter of both law and procedure.
Paragraph 2.3 of the explanatory memorandum states:
“This European Council decision and the United Kingdom’s agreement to it constitute a binding agreement to extend in EU and international law.”
That statement is open to an interpretation that places responsibility for the extension of the UK’s membership on the European Council, but the Council cannot extend the UK’s membership. Without an agreement, which is reached under international law between the UK and the Council, there is no extension. Paragraph 2.3 confuses the matter all the more when read in conjunction with a letter from Sir Timothy Barrow following the Council meeting of 10 April, in which he refers to a
“Council decision taken in agreement with the United Kingdom”.
As the Committee will know, the United Kingdom is expressly excluded from Council decisions and decisions in relation to extensions. Therefore, no Council decision was or could be taken with the United Kingdom’s participation. Only with a separate act of the United Kingdom outside the Council could an international agreement of the kind necessary to extend the UK’s membership of the EU have come about at all. To the extent that the United Kingdom’s representative in Brussels purported to agree to an extension, that act was performed under circumstances that did not allow the United Kingdom to give due consideration to the terms that the Council had proposed—demanded, I would say—or the terms of the United Kingdom’s response.
The hastiness of the letter was followed by the Government’s failure to observe the procedures required for the United Kingdom to enter into such international agreements. The memorandum asserts that, as a result of events following the European Council decision,
“the UK remains a Member State until 31 October 2019 regardless of the passage of these Regulations at the domestic level.”
As a matter of law, I believe this statement is untenable. The explanatory memorandum further states that the Government “will also now”—at that time—
“delay commencement of the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972”
under the arrangements for commencement orders. That ignores that fact that, under the Government’s own guidelines on commencement orders, they are required to be made within a reasonable time, otherwise questions of ultra vires are raised. The commencement order has been sitting there since 26 June 2018—far too long.
Moreover, there is no provision in the statutory instrument for exit day to take place on any of the possible alternative dates provided for in article 2 of the decision of the European Council of 11 April 2019, which stipulates a number of conditions for that further extension. The decision prescribed an extension lasting no longer than 31 October 2019, but with the proviso in recital 8 that, if the withdrawal agreement was ratified meanwhile, the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on the first day of the month following the completion of the ratification procedures.
Article 2 of the decision further requires that, if the United Kingdom did not ratify the withdrawal agreement by 22 May 2019 and had not held European parliamentary elections in accordance with European law, the decision would cease to apply and the extension would therefore expire on 31 May 2019. The effect of the decision was therefore to provide for three possible dates on which the United Kingdom might cease to be a member state of the European Union. On 11 April 2019, the Government wrote to the European Council accepting the demands of the decision. The statutory instrument now provides that exit day is 31 October 2019. However, there is no provision in the statutory instrument for exit day to take place on any of the possible alternative dates set out in the decision—I repeat: on any of the possible alternative dates set out in the decision. Therefore, the statutory instrument does not
“ensure the day and time specified in the definition are the day and time that the EU Treaties are to cease to apply to the United Kingdom.”
Thus, the statutory instrument was not made for the statutory purpose for which it was designed, and it is ultra vires and void, with the effect that our exit was at 11 pm on 12 April 2019.
Under section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 is tied to exit day. Thus, European law would no longer have precedence over domestic law from exit day. Furthermore, under section 5(1) of the same Act, the principle of the supremacy of EU law would not apply to any enactment or rule of law passed or made on or after exit day. Similarly, other provisions of the withdrawal agreement, such as section 6(1), would apply, so that decisions made by the European Union after exit day would no longer be binding on the courts of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it is to be observed in paragraph 6(3) of the explanatory memorandum that the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019, for which Royal Assent was given on 8 April 2019, amends paragraph 14 of schedule 7 to the 2018 Act to convert the regulations in question from the affirmative to the negative resolution procedure.
Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I wonder whether my hon. Friend could help me on two points. First, if he succeeds in defeating the regulation in the Committee today, as he might well through the force of his arguments, what will be the practical outcome of his victory? Secondly, on his arguing that the regulation is ultra vires, is this not a matter for the courts, including the Supreme Court, rather than Parliament?
Sir William Cash
It is indeed a matter for the courts as well, but it is also prudent and constitutional for Government to make laws in such a manner as to be within the law. We operate under a system of the rule of law, and it is therefore unacceptable for Governments to make legislation. That is why the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and other Committees that scrutinise legislation, including the European Scrutiny Committee, which I happen to have the honour of chairing, have a job to do in bringing Governments to account. This Committee and the prescribed annulment procedures that we are going through are part and parcel of that democratic, accountable procedure.
Although it is ultimately for the courts to make decisions on the basis that my right hon. Friend suggests—namely that decisions can be evaluated, as in the Gina Miller case—in this instance we are not at that point yet, and in the meantime we have a Government passing legislation that I and many other distinguished Queen’s counsel and former judges believe to be unlawful, void and ultra vires on the one hand. On the other hand, given the devious means by which the Cooper-Letwin Bill was brought through, it is not appropriate for any proper system of parliamentary government, because it is inconsistent with the normal behaviour of Parliament in relation to the passing of legislation.
Mr Vaizey
Exactly. You were indicating two things, Sir Lindsay: first, that I need to get back to the point; and secondly, that I am an incredibly poor reader of hand signals from the Chair. I can tell that a few other hon. Members, who may not be members of the Committee, are also keen to project hand signals in my direction as part of this courteous but robust debate—the kind of debate that has characterised our approach to our exit from the European Union.
Turning to the regulations in front of us, my fundamental problem with the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone is as follows. First, fundamentally, he believes that the regulations are ultra vires—that Parliament does not really have the power to pass them. He did not suggest that. He is an honourable man, and he would never dream of suggesting it. There can be no suggestion that the Government are trying to pull a fast one—that they are consciously passing legislation that they know to be ultra vires. I think it is the case, as we saw with article 50, that the Government take advice from their lawyers and follow procedures that they think are within the law and the constitution.
Sir William Cash
It is terribly simple. I believe that the Government knew perfectly well that this procedure was inappropriate. Furthermore, they rammed it through the House of Commons that afternoon of 11 April after the abject surrender by the Prime Minister, and then purported to say that it was an agreement when quite obviously it was imposed on the Prime Minister by the European Union’s 27 member states.
Mr Vaizey
I am slightly taken aback by that statement. My hon. Friend is someone whom I have long admired and looked up to—he has been in the House for more than 30 years and is well known for his constitutional expertise—but he makes a pretty serious allegation that the Government are putting through legislation that they are constitutionally not entitled to put through. I hope that, at some point, the Minister will address that, or that my hon. Friend will have the chance to expand on his point, but it surprises me. I compare the Government’s approach to that on article 50, as I said—because a treaty was involved, they believed that they had the power to extend article 50 without recourse to Parliament, and it took a court case to illustrate that invoking article 50 fundamentally changed legislation and so Parliament’s approval was required.
Given my hon. Friend’s intervention and that he has talked about Government through Parliament, not Parliament through Government, the other point that I find surprising is that he now appears to be saying that the Government are acting in bad faith. With his overview of the evolution of our unwritten and flexible constitution, is he coming to the conclusion, perhaps, that it is better to have parliamentary government, rather than Government through Parliament? On that basis, from his own arguments, surely he has now changed his mind on the Cooper-Letwin Bill, which came about partly because of the legislature’s mistrust of the motives of the Executive. The legislature was concerned that the Executive was not putting in place the procedures needed to stop no deal, which all of us in the room can at least agree would be absolutely catastrophic for the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] I am amazed that my banal remark has provoked an intervention, but I will give way.
Euratom Membership
Debate between William Cash and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. One Member asked earlier why we are singling out Euratom from other European institutions that we will leave as part of the process of leaving the European Union. The key point is that our membership of Euratom is under a treaty separate from our membership of the European Union.
Sir William Cash
I just want to reaffirm something. The Commission’s position paper, dated 27 June, is quite unequivocal about the fact that when notice is given, we cease to be members of Euratom and also the EU under article 50. That is quite clearly set out in the Commission’s position paper.
Mr Vaizey
We remain members of Euratom, as we remain members of the European Union. We served our intention to leave, but there is many a slip between cup and lip. I hate to mention this name in august company, in case it sets off an argument, but it was interesting to see Juncker’s chief of staff today pointing out that he has never made a comment about our membership of Euratom. In terms of his general approach to Brexit and our not having our cake and eating it, he specifically said on Twitter today that that does not include Euratom. There are huge opportunities here, and we all stand ready to help the Minister.
Exiting the European Union and Global Trade
Debate between William Cash and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Sir William Cash
I know where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but I simply say that even the leader of his party has more or less had to abandon the pursuit of the independence of Scotland, which is what underpins that question. [Interruption.] That is the bottom line. Comparisons between our great country and Somalia and Sudan are simply absurd, because this is a great country that has been making its own laws for centuries.
We went into the European Community with hope, and I voted yes in the 1975 referendum because I wanted to see whether it could work. My 30 years in the European Scrutiny Committee have proven absolutely that it does not. It is undemocratic and operates behind closed doors, and I doubt whether even that applies in some of the countries to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
I now want to conclude—
Sir William Cash
I always know that I am making an impact when the hon. Member for Wantage starts wanting to get to his feet.
Sir William Cash
He is my right hon. Friend—my very good friend. [Laughter.] I have great respect for him, although we do not always agree about everything. The same is true of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who is, I suspect, on much the same track as him.
We enjoy a trade surplus of £34.4 billion with the rest of the world. As I said, yes, 44% of our trade is with the EU—
European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]
Debate between William Cash and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am, in fact, the Minister responsible for culture, communications and the creative industries. They are a number of different matters, but they are all linked.
The sole purpose of the Bill is to support two draft regulations of the Council of the European Union. They both rely on article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which permits the adoption of a measure to attain one of the objectives set out in the European Union treaties but for which no specific power is given in the treaties, provided that it has the unanimous support of all member states.
Thanks to this Government, who passed the European Union Act 2011 to ensure that no treaty could be passed without a referendum, such measures must be approved by Parliament. Parliamentary scrutiny of European measures is a matter of lively debate at the moment, and I am delighted to see so many of my colleagues who are experts on European matters present in the Chamber this afternoon. I am also delighted that it is this Government who have given Members of both Houses the chance to decide whether to approve such measures. I note that the Bill was debated in the other place, which is renowned for its scrutinising abilities, for precisely 37 minutes. The German Parliament carried out similar scrutiny before approving the measure—its measures are similar to ours—although I am not sure how long that debate lasted.
Mr Cash
Is my hon. Friend aware that the Europe for Citizens programme could be construed as no more than a provision to enable grant-making for organisations that tend to be of a Europhile capacity? Hopefully it would be resisted by the Government on the grounds that it would be likely to induce propaganda for the purposes of European elections and the like.
Mr Vaizey
I do not want to get ahead of myself, because I must first cover the specific regulations. My hon. Friend is a lawyer and an expert on European matters. I am not here to defend every measure. For example, I note that one of the measures audited in 2013 related to supporting the “European Network on forward policies and actions for seniors in Europe”. With one in five Europeans already in their 60s, our take on old age needs reconsidering. That programme focused on older people in the European Union, not European federalism. I will address the Europe for Citizens programme, to which he refers. It is one of two regulations—I say this for the benefit of all hon. Members taking part in the debate—that will be approved by the Bill.
Mr Cash
That is an extremely important question, to which the answer is zero: none at all. Perhaps the Minister would like to intervene in order to repudiate what I am saying, and to assure me that none of this money will be used for any propaganda exercises—that none of it will be given to think-tanks that are promoting the idea of the European Union—and to make absolutely clear that we are not, as a Government, supporting the promotion of propaganda for the purposes of political union in advance of European elections. The Minister is sitting with a Sphinx-like expression on his face. I suspect that he knows the answer, but is not terribly keen to give it to me.
Mr Vaizey
It is a poker face, actually, not a Sphinx-like expression. I will respond to my hon. Friend when I sum up the debate. There are so many Members in the Chamber this afternoon who are experts on this subject and who will want to make lengthy interventions to educate the House about the Bill that I do not want to stand in their way, given that I know I have a slot.
Mr Cash
There is another point, too. A very interesting statement, which I happen to know is true, was made under the aegis of the European Scrutiny Committee. In his letter of 19 November 2013, the Minister said that an agreement on the substance of the draft regulation had been reached by COREPER in March 2013. I need not spend too much time on that, because the COREPER problems are contained in our report, but the point is that the agreement to which the letter referred was ticked off by officials.
I am not denying that the Minister has come to the House and said that he endorses this, and the same situation arose in the House of Lords. However, I want to emphasise that our report, which has been supported by all those Members of Parliament, identified that process as a matter of concern, because it had been dealt with by officials in the first place and ticked off by them, and then along came the Government and agreed to it. We had recommended that the whole matter be dealt with in a European Standing Committee. Our recommendation has understandably been overtaken by events, in the shape of the Bill, but we remain deeply concerned about the way in which the money could be used.
I am always pleased to be able to be constructive, and to offer a tribute when it is required. I was glad to hear the Minister tell us—and I happen to know that this is true—that the amount of money in question started out as £229 million, and has been reduced to £185 million. I am glad he linked that to the reduction in the budget generally under the multiannual arrangements he described, but I would only make this point, especially on behalf of some on this side of the House: I put down the amendment that helped the Government to arrive at the decision that reducing the budget would be a good idea, because that was a unanimous decision that had been agreed to on both sides of the House.
Wedgwood Museum
Debate between William Cash and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(14 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Hollobone. I know that you will go on to have a distinguished career as a Chairman of these kinds of debates, and in many other areas of the parliamentary process. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) on calling this debate to highlight the plight of the Wedgwood museum. It has been very enjoyable—I hesitate to use that word—to hear him set out the case for the Wedgwood museum in the forceful style to which many millions of television viewers have become accustomed. I also express my gratitude to the number of hon. Members who have attended and spoken in this debate. I refer to the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for his presence and the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), who intervened. I pay tribute to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash). We had not only a deep historical analysis of the importance of the Wedgwood collection, but, through my hon. Friend —he is one of our foremost and most distinguished constitutional lawyers—we were able to have a tour d’horizon of the legislative or constitutional solutions that might pertain to the future of the Wedgwood collection.
As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central made clear, the Wedgwood collection is part of this country’s history. I make no bones about that; it is probably one of the most important crafts collections and one of the most important historic collections in the country. It is an integral collection and, as the hon. Gentleman indicated in his speech, it has been more than 250 years in the making. It stands, as it were, at one end of the spectrum of the craft in which this country continues to thrive, a spectrum that ranges from the Wedgwood collection to the creation of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is the foremost museum of crafts in the world. Two years ago, the Wedgwood museum won the prestigious Art Fund prize and the Victoria & Albert Museum of course reopened its crafts galleries to huge acclaim.
It is absolutely clear from the remarks of hon. Members that have already been made during this debate and I hope that it will be absolutely clear from the remarks that I will make in concluding the debate that none of us would like to be in this position. We are almost, as it were, walk-on parts in an obscure Dickensian novel, in which a complicated piece of legislation has the most dramatic and unintended consequences. Potentially, those consequences put one of the great cultural jewels of the nation under threat.
Nevertheless, as a Minister I cannot circumvent the law. At this stage, I must simply report to hon. Members what I believe to be the current position and then I can perhaps extrapolate from that position where we might go with a plan A, or indeed a plan B. So I want to update hon. Members on the progress on the case; I want to outline the Government’s position; I want to set out what I believe could be the next steps to protect the museum and avoid the loss of the collection; and, as hon. Members have suggested, I also want to consider what we can learn from this case to ensure that other museums do not find themselves in a similar position in the future.
First, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the Wedgwood museum went into administration in April this year after it was served with a substantial pension debt by the company that was set up to manage the Wedgwood Group pension plan. The trustees of the museum firmly believe that the museum’s collection is held in special trust and should not be available to pay that debt. Therefore the administrator, together with the trustees of the museum, is preparing to make an application to court to clarify the status of the collection. That application will be made when certain administrative matters have been settled, which we are informed should be by the end of November. Then the administrator will be able to make a formal application to court. Although that application to court will be made as soon as is possible, the timing of the court hearing is not within the control of the museum or the administrator.
As the hon. Gentleman also indicated in his opening remarks, the museum is in the unfortunate position that it finds itself in because of its participation in a multi-employer pension scheme covering a number of employers in the Waterford Wedgwood Group. When the group went into administration in 2009, the museum found itself as the last remaining employer in that scheme. Therefore, the museum technically became responsible for a pension debt that, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, is in the region of £134 million. That pension debt or shortfall affects some 7,000 members of that pension scheme, including former employees of Wedgwood Ltd, Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd and Stuart and Sons Ltd.
Due processes now need to be followed to establish what assets are potentially available, and the Wedgwood museum is not exempt from those processes. The pension scheme has now entered an assessment period for the Pension Protection Fund, the body that was put in place to ensure that pension scheme members receive a meaningful income in place of their pension, where an employer has become insolvent or where there are insufficient assets. However, the PPF has no control over the sale of the museum’s assets.
We must follow the correct processes. If schemes such as the Wedgwood Group pension plan were to be admitted to the PPF without pursuing the debts owed to them, a greater burden would fall on pension schemes that pay the pension protection levy. That would then undermine the financial sustainability of the system and its ability to serve its purpose. Unfortunately, as I have already indicated, in this case there is a view that the Wedgwood collection could be a potential asset.
The Charity Commission was asked to provide a view on whether the collection is held in permanent endowment or whether it is part of the charity’s corporate property, which is available to creditors. The issue was considered at the very highest level by the Charity Commission. Despite the commission’s sympathy for the museum and its recognition of the importance of the collection, it reached the conclusion that the museum’s collection was not protected.
The commission cannot exercise any discretion in that decision and it must reach a conclusion based on the facts of the case and the law. However, it is a regulator and it can only reach a view on whether the collection is held in permanent endowment. The only body able to give a definitive ruling remains a court of law.
Given what is at stake here and the need for absolute certainty, the commission has confirmed that it would give consent for the museum to take court proceedings. The process of administration intervened before those court proceedings could commence.
The Government have not ignored this situation and fully recognise the implications for the people of Stoke-on-Trent and the potential loss of their heritage and indeed the nation’s heritage.
Mr Vaizey
It has been a while since I studied trust law, but I am not quite sure on what grounds equitable relief would be available in these cases. However, I would defer to more senior counsel on that point.
I would like to return to what I was discussing before my hon. Friend’s intervention, which is my Department’s involvement in the issue of the future of the Wedgwood collection. The Department has worked closely with the museum’s director and trustees, their legal advisers and the Charity Commission to assist in this matter. Under the last Government, the Department provided assistance to the Wedgwood museum, and since I have been in office I have also given as much assistance as I have been able to.
I will recap on the Department’s involvement so far. First, the chairman of the museum approached the Department in October 2009 to ask for help in clarifying the status of the collection. Department officials set up a meeting with the Charity Commission, in which the commission agreed to review the museum’s evidence. That led to the commission taking the view about the collection that it did.
More important, in January of this year the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council awarded a grant of £200,000 to the museum to support its legal costs. I know that hon. Members will agree with me, particularly as it happened under the previous Government, that that was an important injection of financial support given the situation that the museum finds itself in. The Department also gave a one-off grant of £25,000 to support the museum’s operational commitments.
As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central pointed out, the Heritage Lottery Fund had already generously funded a substantial proportion of the new museum, but since January of this year it has awarded a grant of £50,000 towards the museum’s educational work with schools, its volunteers’ programme and staff training, to enable the museum to meet the new challenges that it faces.
In July, I wrote to the new owners of the Wedgwood company to alert them to the museum’s predicament and to emphasise the importance of the museum’s collection. I am pleased to say that the museum now has a good relationship with the new owners of the Wedgwood company.
Throughout this time, my Department, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the Charity Commission have all worked as closely as possible to support and advise the Wedgwood museum, and to try to plot a way forward. As a result of that work and the efforts of the museum’s director and its excellent staff, the museum is still open to the public and receiving a steady flow of visitors. It has made strong partnerships with the local cultural and tourist industries, and it has a business plan in place to ensure that it can continue to operate if the courts should rule in its favour.
To sum up, I believe that my Department and its sponsored bodies have acted quickly and effectively to support the Wedgwood museum during the past year, when there have been two different Governments.