Education (Student Support) (European University Institute) Regulations 2010

My Lords, if any of us had been under the impression that the details of the European bureaucracy did not matter, I am sure that that impression was shattered by President Sarkozy’s delight at the appointment of Michel Barnier to the finance portfolio. It seems to me that it is of the first importance that the European Union should have a proper representation in the bureaucracy; that we should have people there who not only represent and speak for Britain, but who also are of really high quality; that these people really understand what goes on in the UK; and that they can hold our interests and our way of thinking high in the process by which policy is made in Europe. So much of our law-making and our future is tied up in the European Union. I had always assumed that a core of the Civil Service had this as its first priority and that there was a lasting drive—it is not really a matter of politics, at least not between the three parties represented here today—to this being what we should be doing. It is a process which should have carried on from generation to generation of civil servants, and which should have been polished and improved in the way in which some countries seem to take a delight in doing. As a humble member of the Merits Committee, it was an astonishment to me to come across this statutory instrument, which clearly shows that the ball had been dropped quite disastrously. Not only had one element of our preparation for getting good-quality candidates into the European bureaucracy been swept away at a stroke, unconsidered by a ministry, but when this was pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Kinnock, it appeared—notably—that the policy was not even being kept under review. No one in government knew why we were funding places at the College of Europe. It was not part of a considered process at all. It is not just a ball dropped by someone in an individual ministry; this is a representation of something which has gone wrong much more fundamentally in government. I therefore felt that it was worth raising this matter as a Motion. I really hope that this can be rescued and that we will now find ourselves, whatever happens on 6 May, with a process of recovering our position within the European bureaucracy. I also hope that we will pay attention to making sure that we get some of our brightest and best people out there, and that the processes which go to make that happen—whether or not they include the College of Europe, which has a good track record in this regard—are taken seriously and become embedded in the way in which the Civil Service runs from government to government. It should be part of the fundamental engine and unaffected by the politics flowing above it. I beg to move.