Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 General Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for outlining the purpose of this particular provision. He set out what the fund does and the important work it has carried out in the last number of years and that it will continue to carry out.

During an earlier Statutory Instrument Committee, I told the Minister that I wanted clarification on a number of questions. We are concerned about regulation 4, which states that

“the Secretary of State may grant and provide financial assistance”.

Regulation 4(2) states:

“Financial assistance may be provided in such form and on such terms as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

The wording of those two sentences suggests an element of discretion and that the Secretary of State or Minister may not follow this through properly. For example, if somebody has already been awarded money and has received only some of it, the question is whether they will be entitled to the rest of it, or whether that will be reliant on the fact that the Secretary of State “may” grant it, as opposed to “should” grant it, if certain criteria are fulfilled.

We have a number of other questions. If we exit without a deal, what happens if A has applied for a grant but has not yet received a decision? Would that mean that that application had finished? Alternatively, if the EU decided to agree to the application, who would pay that funding? Will the European Union still be allowed to consider applications that have not taken place once the exit has been done? As we know, the fund runs until 2020. If someone makes an application after we exit without a deal, will the European Union have the power to look at it, and, if it grants funding, is it the Government or the European Union that would pay?

If B applies after exit without a deal but before December 2020, are they still allowed to apply? If we exit with a deal, during the transition period will funding that has not yet been granted be paid by the European Union or by our Government, and who will pay for applications that are under consideration or have been successful? Will the payment be guaranteed, because regulation 4(1) states that the Secretary of State “may” rather than “will” grant? Finally, will the Minister confirm that the Government guarantee to award funding to programmes within the scheme?