European Union (Amendment) Bill

moved Amendment No. 5: 5: Clause 2, page 1, line 12, after ““excluding”” insert— ““(i) Article 1, paragraph 4, replacement Article 2, in so far as it concerns the promotion of economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among the Member States, and (ii) ”” The noble Lord said: This is an innocent little amendment to start us off after the dinner break. Its purpose is to withdraw our regional funds and our economic and social funds. I put it down because I would like to test the present position of the Government on the regional policy for funding and I would like to test the Conservative Party on its latest position on repatriation of social and labour policy. I start with a quotation from the present Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, when he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as reported in the Times on 6 March 2003. I know that we have given up doing foreign quotations this evening, but I thought that one from no less a personage than the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the current Prime Minister, might be a reasonable yardstick to test the Government’s present position. On 6 March, Mr Gordon Brown said: "““When the economic and social, as well as democratic, arguments on structural funds now and for the future so clearly favour subsidiary in action, there is no better place to start than by bringing regional policy back to Britain””." That in the clearest possible terms is the present Prime Minister saying that he thought regional policy should be repatriated to the United Kingdom, with which I and my colleagues agree. The purpose of putting down the amendment is to discover whether the Government still agree with that. This is a useful amendment because it is the whole of Article 2 of the new treaty, which is all about combating social exclusion, discrimination, promoting social justice and protection, equality between men and women, solidarity between generations, protection of the rights of the child, and so on. I could go on. I know that we are anxious to make progress so I will not go further. Clearly, it opens the way to invite the Conservative Party to say where it stands on one of the only two policies it has announced towards the European Union, were it to be so fortunate as to win the next election. One is that if this treaty goes through, it "““would not let the matter rest there””." I do not want to press the party on that.