I am grateful to the Minister and to my noble friend Lord Fox and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake. This very short debate has been illustrative because, some of the flippancy aside,
it addressed the vulnerabilities that could arise from a lack of transparency in certain areas of subsidy schemes. There is absolutely no intention to prevent anybody standing to represent people in their area and to argue the case for their area. That is absolutely fundamental and a positive. I did it. I fought hard to keep structural funds in the south of Scotland. I will fight the fact that that money is now being taken away by the Minister’s Bill. That is something I will fight for. I will be very passionate for it, and I will hold the Conservatives to account for taking those funds away from the Scottish borders.
8 pm
When the structural funds were there, I did not seek to direct them to the exclusion of others, after a policy had been set, nor would I seek to favour potential recipients in whom I had an interest. The noble Baroness is absolutely right: that is why we have registers of interest and cannot game the system. It is nothing to do with having political priorities but is everything to do with use. If the Minister took this to its natural progression, the levelling-up fund would not have had a prioritisation of places methodology note; it simply would not. If the Minister’s argument held, there would be no need to state that there are certain areas that can get some of the funds, to the exclusion of others. It would just be a general fund that would be open to all.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said, we are regrettably in a different situation now. I wonder what would have happened if, under this Bill, in another situation of great pressure, the Government had said, “We’re going to make the VIP lane for PPE a subsidy scheme.” That would have changed quite dramatically the level of transparency and accountability. We have seen that under the VIP lane scheme, in which, suspiciously, only Conservatives were successful, but that is a separate issue. This Bill affords greater openness and should come with greater sense. I take on board the drafting issue raised by the Minister.
We can sort out whether we are doing the next group. I know it is close to dinner time, but let us sort the pork barrel before we have the meal. If it helps the Minister, I can speak for another 25 minutes on this. I could talk for the rest of the Grand Committee on Conservative misuse of public funds.
In the spirit of finding consensus, and taking on board the Minister’s reprimand about my drafting, I will accept his amendment to my amendment and change it to refer to improper use. Until I can reword the drafting to take the Minister’s suggestion on board, so that we can have a conversation, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.