European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Lord quoted accurately from our report. I am glad that he approved of it. However, it is a little more complicated than he suggested. We also said that EU cohesion funds should be spent in the poorer regions of the states that were joining then. We did not suggest cutting off the funds just like that. The noble Lord rightly said that there is a case for the principle of subsidiarity to operate in the richer states and for national Governments to fund and manage their own regional policies. But we then went on to say that there are tremendous gains to be made from enabling the new member states to catch up towards the average level of wealth in the Union. So it is a slightly more complicated argument than the noble Lord suggested.