European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am becoming quite accustomed to listening to the speeches of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), and to speaking after him. I should point out to him that the Prime Minister appeared before the Liaison Committee, which consists of the Chairs of all the Select Committees. The Prime Minister does not appear before individual Select Committees, although when he was Chancellor he appeared very willingly before the European Scrutiny Committee. He spoke lucidly and, in my opinion, demonstrated an inventive attitude towards some of the European Union's policies. I am thinking particularly of his ideas about the funding of what were called regional policies when we had a regional policy. I think that if he were ever to implement those ideas, it would be very beneficial to the regions of the United Kingdom They were based on support for innovation rather than the attempts to bolster dying industries that we have seen in the past in many parts of the European Community. As for the mandate, I am surprised that Members should see a parallel between Lech Walesa and the democratic institutions, and the fall of Soviet communism, but do not see the association between the European Union and the fact that countries wish to join it because they view it as a form of democratic co-operation constituting an alternative to what confronted them under the dominating vertical force of Soviet communism. The European Union is the very thing that helped Lech Walesa to break down the control of the Soviet Union. People speak of the EU as if it were a malicious and malignant organisation, whereas it offers numerous benefits to all those countries—from those that are very near to us, such as Ireland, which was not previously under Soviet domination but was a stagnant economy, to Slovenia, which has 2 million people, currently holds the EU presidency and is doing extremely well in maintaining Europe's momentum.