European Union (Amendment) Bill

I support my noble friend’s amendment. I shall read out one or two quotations but I am sure that the Lord President will not mind because they are from a report of the European Union Select Committee on the future financing of the EU. That committee was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Radice, who I am very pleased to see in his place. Among other things, the committee discussed cohesion and structural funds. It was a brief but very good report which stated in one of its conclusions: "““We believe that the proposals to continue funding regional development after 2006 are inconsistent with the principles of subsidiarity””." Neither was the committee at all supportive of the Commission’s view that the latter was better placed than member states to run regional development funds. According to the committee, the member countries could run those themselves. I agree wholeheartedly with that. The report also states: "““We believe there is a strong case under the principle of subsidiarity for national governments to fund and manage their own regional policies””." That could hardly be clearer. This is a helpful amendment for the Government because it is the European Union Committee’s own recommendation that regional policies and the cohesion fund should be funded by member states and that we should not pass lots of money over to Europe for this to be done through the Commission. That will give some comfort to the hard-pressed British taxpayer who resents giving money over to the Commission whose accounts have not been passed by its own Court of Auditors for the last 11, 12 or 13 years. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, is not present as he would correct me. I think the figure is 13 consecutive years. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, wishes to intervene.