House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 Jan 1993

Mr. Jessel : Yes. It is all part of the European Community institutions trying to tell us more and more what to do. It is all part of the concept of pooling the government of Britain with that of continental countries. The people of Britain do not want that in the arts, in culture or in any other field. Most of us have nothing against, for example, Spaniards or Italians, but the British people do not want to share in ruling Spain or Italy. They certainly do not want the Spaniards and the Italians to have a share in ruling us. We want friendship and co-operation. In cultural matters there is already a tremendous amount going on by way of exchanges. Our great orchestras, singers, operas and ballets frequently travel on the continent. There is enormous international movement not only of the live arts but of exhibitions of the work of creative artists--so much so that some people have begun to worry.

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Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) rose --

Mr. Jessel : If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must conclude.

Paintings are moved so often that some people are worried that they may be damaged as they are flown around the continent in aeroplanes. Many exhibitions are paid for by the British Council. I am all in favour of bilateral sponsorship, and some exhibitions are sponsored by American and Japanese interests.

The system is going extremely well. It does not need to be tampered with. We do not need bits of paper from the European Commission. We should remember that sound and sensible American doctrine : "If it ain't bust, don't fix it." Let us concentrate on diversity and cut out all the nonsense about bringing a common cultural heritage to the fore. We do not want it, we do not need it, we ought to have nothing to do with it, and we ought to throw out this terrible treaty. 5.30 pm

Dr. Kim Howells : As someone who considers the definitions of what constitutes good, or high art, and bad, or low art, to be problematic at best and irrelevant most of the time, it grieves me to have to beg to differ with my esteemed colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). I suspect that the lyrics of Cole Porter and Bob Dylan explored and reflected the experience of contemporary life with at least as much veracity and insight as the very best librettist of a 20th century opera, and probably a lot better. It is not helpful to talk about the influence of culture in that way, nor is it possible to describe what is a great culture and what is bad. So-called high or great art has appropriated modes of dance and speech which were--and are--developed in popular dance halls and on the streets, which are not necessarily recognised as the seedbed of great art by the people who are paid excellent salaries to tell us what does or does not constitute great art. I hope that article 128 will not result in a proliferation of salaried positions throughout Europe for culture vultures who, I am afraid, expropriate far too much of the money that is made available to artists, writers and musicians in Europe, and which should end up in their pockets, rather than with quangos from Dublin to Berlin.

The interesting aspect of article 128 is that it may make possible co- operation in film production throughout Europe. This country has a great, but aging reputation in film. We have watched our film industry decline rapidly during the past 20 years. Although we must be careful not to romanticise the French and Italian film industries, we have a good deal to learn from them about the way in which we fund films. It is important to emphasise that the British film industry--I say British because I want to differentiate between English and Welsh films--

Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray) : What about Scottish films?

Dr. Howells : I shall discuss Scottish films in a different way. We must understand the relationship between film making in this country, which is mainly English-speaking, and in America, as that is important if we are to understand our relationship with Europe. There has been a great flowering of European film making, especially after

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the second world war, and a parallel decline in British film making. Perhaps that has as much to do with the direct competition that we face from English-speaking film makers in America as it has to do with any decline in cultural talent and creativity in this country. I believe that it has much more to do with that competition.

During the past five years, the Welsh language channel S4C has been one of the great cradles of film making, albeit on a modest scale, and large sums of money have been made available to it. I understand that they run to about £45 million a year at the moment. Knowing the Government, it is a mystery to some of us why that generosity continues. I am glad it does, because it is an interesting and worthwhile experiment, which shows that it is possible to fund film, or at least to create a seedbed of talent and hope that it will develop.

Mr. Key : That illustrates exactly what we mean by subsidiarity. The great benefit of article 128 in the treaty of Maastricht is precisely that it concentrates on what national Governments should do and does not seek to establish a grand European design. In the same breath, I must draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to what is happening in Scotland with the Gaelic language and the fact that, when talking about less-used European languages, it is important to understand exactly what we mean. We are not merely talking about languages spoken by a few score thousand people. The Danes are very sensitive about Danish being a less-used European language, as are the Germans in the context of publishing.

Dr. Howells : I thank the Minister for that intervention. I think that that is one of the easier examples of subsidiarity to understand. However, it must constantly be tested in this Parliament. We cannot take it for granted that next year's grant for Welsh or Scottish language film making will be automatic. I assume that it will not be, and that we shall have to fight that battle next year as we have done in the past.

Dr. Godman : May I point out to my hon. Friend that there is no hint of any application of the principle of subsidiarity in article 128?

Dr. Howells : Thank you. I understand that the article comes under the heading of those governed by subsidiarity--[ Hon. Members :-- "Why?"] It is in the first sentence.

On the funding of film making in Europe, I do not for a moment believe that the future lies with some sort of Euro-film culture. Some examples of joint film production in Europe are excellent, but I am afraid that some are the filmic equivalent of the Eurovision song contest. As a fan of cowboy films, I think some of the awful spaghetti westerns that have been made on the prairies of Spain and at Cinecitta in Rome are an example. However, we should not be put off by that--and nor should we see it as the model for the future. The interesting aspect of article 128 is the possibility that it offers for the movement of capital and the joint funding of films. For whatever reason, there have been many heroic attempts to raise large amounts of money to make films in Britain. One thinks of the successes of people such as David Puttnam in doing so.

Film making is a phenomenally expensive industry, if the films are to compete in an international market. I

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understand that the latest Steven Spielberg film cost about $55 million, and that the lead character--a dinosaur--cost more than it cost to make the film Casablanca. We must come to terms with how we can raise that amount of money. Whether because of Government policy or the backwardness of banks and financiers and their unimaginative policies, the money has not been forthcoming and our best talents have had to move across the Atlantic to try to find it. I hope that the opportunities presented by article 128 will make the Government take notice of the possibilities, and take a lead in seeking funds.

Mrs. Dunwoody : My hon. Friend mentioned the provision by the Community of money for the making of Welsh language films. Small amounts may be specifically allowable for what are patronisingly called "less-used languages" ; but if the British film industry made a determined attempt to secure the fiscal and other support that other European countries give to their film industries, we should immediately be told that that would distort the pattern of trade. It simply would not be acceptable.

Dr. Howells : I cannot agree. This may sound like heresy, coming from an Opposition Member, but I do not believe that the future of films depends on state subsidy. The state cannot fund the film industry, regardless of who governs the state concerned. We cannot ask the taxpayer to put up $50 million, or the sterling equivalent. The role of the state is to create the seedbed for film talent--and, so far as I can see, nothing in article 128 will preclude that happening in this or any other European country. Indeed, we may be able to learn from the European example.

None the less, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has raised an important point. What will happen, for example, if free competition across European frontiers requires the fair competition office in Brussels to investigate the £45 million given by the British Government to S4C, the Welsh language channel? Will it be seen as unfair competition, on the ground that it promotes the British film industry? I fear that this may spell trouble for many of our finest institutions which currently receive state funds. I have hopes for article 128. I think that it may advance the film industry--not through the idea that we shall come up with a European image of film, which I consider hopeless nonsense, but perhaps through the idea that the individual creative talent which exists in each European region and nation can be helped by receiving funds.

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Janet Fookes) : I call the Minister of State.

Hon. Members : Why?

Mr. Garel-Jones : I hope that it will be convenient if I speak briefly-- [Interruption.]

The Second Deputy Chairman : Order. It is for the Chair to select speakers, and I have selected the Minister of State.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Thank you, Dame Janet. Like other hon. Members, I am extremely anxious to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) has to say.

The Committee will be grateful to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) for making it clear that her purpose was to provide the Committee with an opportunity for debate. So far, we have engaged in an amusing and interesting debate, and we have enjoyed that ;

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I must tell the hon. Lady, however, that-- charming colleague though she is outside the House--her speech was, I fear, disappointing to all of us. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) rightly described it as an extraordinary speech, snide and denigrating in tone ; the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) said the same.

The hon. Lady treated us to a tour d'horizon, but I fear that her horizons proved rather narrow for me, at any rate--and, I believe, for the Committee. Hardly a commonplace did not receive a mention. The hon. Lady's remarks about United States culture and renaissance values, her attacks on the Government and Baroness Thatcher-- [Interruption.]

The Second Deputy Chairman : Order. I do not expect to hear a seated commentary.

Mr. Garel-Jones : Thank you, Dame Janet.

Those remarks by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley were, I think, a disappointment to the Committee. They were not up to the standards that we expected. Moreover, in your absence, Dame Janet, she came out with some quotations in Welsh and invited me to follow her down the same route. I shall resist the temptation, as heaven above knows where it might lead me.

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The hon. Lady crowned her speech with a very silly proposition : that the European Community should set minimum standards of expenditure--and later on, no doubt, minimum standards of culture. As I have said, she came out with a number of commonplaces ; even Dr. Goebbels got a mention. I think that it was Dr. Goebbels who said, "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver."--[ Hon. Members-- : "Goering."] I am bound to say that when I hear the hon. Member for Cynon Valley discussing this subject I tend to reach for my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks)--who, alas, is not present today. I think that he would have dealt with the hon. Lady's remarks much more briskly and comprehensively than I could.

The article, as drafted in the treaty, responds to our concerns and provides a fully satisfactory basis for the development of cultural activity. It puts the emphasis where it rightly belongs--on national initiatives. It talks, for example, of the Community's "supporting and supplementing"--not replacing--co-operation between member states, and of the need to respect "national and regional diversity". It is also outward- looking in recognising the need for both the Community and member states to co-operate with third countries, the Council of Europe and others ; and, in what is inevitably a sensitive area, it offers the safeguard of unanimity and specifically excludes harmonisation.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage has supported me throughout today's debate. As the creation of the new Department of National Heritage has underlined, the arts and heritage are of growing importance in many people's lives. That is true both in this country and in other member states. In practice, EC Culture Ministers have been meeting for several years, and the level of Commission activity has tended to increase.

It is an obvious advantage to have a proper legal basis for the co- ordination of this activity, which previously took place in a rather unfocused legislative context. Even

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better is to have a clear definition of what it is appropriate for the Community to do in the cultural field. Thankfully, article 128 eschews the grandiose, and identifies some sensible areas, which member states can usefully work together.

Mrs. Dunwoody : Will the Minister explain why it is necessary to clarify the legislative basis on which Ministers have worked together towards co-operation if--as the right hon. Gentleman has told us--those Ministers do not intend to implement legislation at senior level? Surely Ministers cannot co-operate cheerfully and then suddenly say that they want a legislative base without giving the House a clear indication that they will do something with that legislative base.

Mr. Garel-Jones : There are two answers to the hon. Lady's perfectly fair question. First, in the past four or five years we have become increasingly aware that, unless the areas in which Commission activity is permitted are specifically defined and limited, the Commission in its enthusiasm--which is sometimes well placed and sometimes misplaced--will seek to involve itself in areas where we had not envisaged its intervention. We have become increasingly exposed to that possibility since the passage of the Single European Act. Some articles in the treaty would permit such involvement--by unanimity, I am glad to say.

Secondly, as taxpayers' money is likely to be spent, even though the sums involved will not be huge, I think it right to define, limit and clarify the areas in which the Commission can act.

The extent of cultural co-operation and interchange in Europe is growing all the time. It is already a practical reality that we have experienced in Britain and shared with our European neighbours. One recent example in the United Kingdom was the European city of culture programme and hon. Members, particularly those representing Scottish constituencies, will remember that Glasgow played a quite outstanding role, which has been of continued benefit not only to the citizens of Glasgow but to Scotland as well.

Dr. Godman : What is the Government's current position on the Council of Europe charter on regional and minority languages? Are the Government closer to becoming a signatory to that charter, or do Ministers still have serious reservations about it?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Yes, it is under active consideration. We hope to be able to respond to that question shortly, although I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise answer now.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised a point about Bohemian wood carvings. Several of our diplomatic posts in eastern Europe have reported details of stolen articles of this kind. An exercise is being co- ordinated in co-operation with the Department of National Heritage with the objective of establishing a register of stolen articles, including Bohemian wood carvings, which can be circulated to auction houses in the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) made an interesting and charming speech. At the end of that speech he said something which would have touched a chord with members of all parts of the Committee

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Hon. Members : We cannot hear.

The Second Deputy Chairman : Order. I remind the Minister that both for practical reasons and for reasons of courtesy it is better that he should point in the normal direction.

Mr. Garel-Jones : My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham was expressing a sentiment that will be shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House. We all need to feel a sense of belonging to our own nation. That is important to us in the expression of our national identity. One of the anxieties that many hon. Members have felt is that, for a number of years, the Community has been moving towards seeking to persuade us that the sense of belonging that we feel for our nation can be, may be or should be replaced and substituted by a sense of belonging to the greater European ideal. In my judgment, the treaty in which the article that we are debating appears gives the lie to that and, to the extent that it ever was true, arrests the process and begins to reverse it.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl said in a speech in Oxford on 11 November : "We have not laid the foundation stone with Maastricht for a European superstate which will reduce everything to the same level and blur the differences. Rather we have committed ourselves to a Europe constructed on the principle of unity in diversity." I am confident that the Europe to which article 128, through the cultural dimension, will make a contribution, will be one in which my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham will feel at home and comfortable and in which his English identity is both respected and enhanced.

Mrs. Dunwoody : I am pleased to be following the Minister, as it seems to me that article 128 sums up precisely what is wrong with the treaty. It is really about time for the House of Commons to say plainly that the Community must stop imposing from above views that ought to grow from co-operation between nations. The article is a classic example of that.

The Minister told us that, because the Commission does not have a clearly defined role, whenever there is a difficulty it begins to expand into areas in which it has no business to operate. I can understand the Minister's wish to prevent those divisions from getting into administrative and legalistic problems, because they have no direct legal right to interfere in national affairs. But the reality is different.

The House of Commons gets into a frightful muddle when it talks about culture. We have heard one or two examples of that this afternoon. For example, the culture of my grandchildren, which to a certain extent involves the use of videos, books and paintings that are based on the use of computers and computer design, is not the culture from which I benefited many years ago, from teachers who had a far more formal way of teaching. I do not think that they necessarily gave me a more widely based culture--it was simply different.

We should be worried about accepting something that talks about a common culture and says that we should make money available for grandiose events that will look as if they are joint efforts, without asking precisely what that means.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) was concerned about the diminishing British film industry. There are bilateral treaties, and over the past 30 years there have been attempts by the industry itself and by

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various cultural organisations to produce co -operative films, with varying degress of success, but the reality is that the Community allows enormous differences in national approaches, as it does on so many issues. Were we allowed to protect British films in the way in which the French protect their film industry, there would be some point in looking for a legalistic basis.

The French have always used every known barrier to protect French films, and they will continue to do so with impunity. They will think of a dozen different reasons. They will say that it is entirely a matter of protecting their language and culture, and that it is important to carry that culture to other nations. They use the money available for cultural budgets to go to Africa and other third-world countries to establish bases which are used, sometimes quite brutally, for the extension of trade--and good luck to them if they can get away with it.

If we tried to do the same thing, we should rapidly be told that there was no such protection available for English language films, because English is not a minority language. Not even in the House do we pretend that English is a minority language. From time to time, we might believe that we have the sole right to take control of it, but the truth is that, throughout the world, the film industry makes films in a language which is used commercially in a hundred different countries for a hundred different reasons.

The Community does not need such an article to get co-operation for cultural events. It is quite capable of that without any such definition. The Commission needs the article because it wants to extend its hegemony. That is the reality behind the clause, and that is my basic objection to it. Not all the affectionate or slightly esoteric commitments to the protection of the cultures of those using--that marvellous phrase that the Minister used--"less-used" languages will change the fact that the treaty is meant to "canalise", if we are making up words-- [Interruption.] The Community makes up words all the time--its treaties could have been written by Lewis Carroll--so why cannot we all play the same game?

In any case, the Community is after a means of defining cultural pursuits and co-operation and the money available for culture. That is disastrous. The whole history of Europe shows that culture is the flowering of the arts created by individuals, not dictated by civil servants, by legislation or even by representative groups such as the House of Commons. Culture comes from inside people.

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Recently I saw the best piece of live theatre that I have seen for many years, in St. David's cathedral. It was an nativity play about morality, produced just before Christmas by mentally handicapped pupils of a school in the vicinity--young people who believe implicitly in the magic they create and who used that wonderful cathedral to the full, because they understood the connection between what they were presenting and that age- old marvellous church in Wales. That could not have been produced on a co- operative European basis. It grew out of the love and understanding of those young people.

Some hon. Members believe that the House of Commons has had its day, that we are moving to a larger theatre : a European theatre. So why, they ask, should we worry about an extension of the Community's powers ?

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They say that this is a logical evolution, a normal development towards different political institutions. Not so.

Mr. Winnick : Is it not interesting that, although some of the more enthusiastic pro-Maastricht Members think that the House of Commons has had its day, very few of them want to go to the European Parliament, but very large numbers of Members of the European Parliament, the moment there is a vacancy in the House of Commons, put forward their names and work hard to get here ?

Mrs. Dunwoody : I am disappointed that my hon. Friend should adopt such a cynical approach to our colleagues' aspirations in the other European institutions. It is remiss of him to think that some self-interest might be involved--

Mr. Budgen : In her absence, perhaps I might speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who has aspirations to move on from this parochial gathering to a wider and nobler gathering in Europe. Perhaps she is an exception to the general rule.

Mrs. Dunwoody : I had hoped that the hon. Lady would be here in person tonight, because with her histrionic abilities, I am sure that she could define the difference between the theatre of the House of Commons and the theatre of the European Parliament.

To return to the article under discussion, some people think that it is possible to produce an entire programme, using taxpayers' money--taken from the taxpayers of the Community--to develop cultural and co-operative projects. The House is right to have deep reservations about this article. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) made a warm and committed speech, but I am not sure whether she thought it a good thing that we should develop this European cultural co-operation, or whether, on the whole, she had reservations about it. I at least have strong feelings--

Dr. Kim Howells : Is my hon. Friend saying that culture, as defined by article 128, is so narrowly described as to preclude the idea that the children who took part in that cultural event in St. David's cathedral will probably be able to remain in and around it because we have some European money to help to build roads out to Pembrokeshire ? We have also managed to get some European money to build roads up to the valleys.

Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) : We are just getting our own money back.

Dr. Howells : That may well be so, but we should not assume that one lot of money is acceptable while another is not--or that the one is not related to culture and the other is. That is to take an extremely narrow view of what constitutes culture in Europe.

Mrs. Dunwoody : This is my day for being told off by my Welsh colleagues. As a humble woman, I accept that criticism with humility--but I must tell my hon. Friend that what he says is a load of baloney. Some road schemes in this country are announced on large notices emblazoned with blue and gold stars. Those schemes enjoy a tiny percentage of money from the Community and a very large percentage provided by the British taxpayer. If my hon. Friend is suggesting that we can develop cultural events only by obtaining money from the Community, I

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am not convinced. I should want to see a large budget, clearly defined and under the control of these, admittedly inadequate, Ministers before I was prepared to go along with such an idea. One has only to read article 128 to realise the difficulties : "The Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore".

What a load of rubbish.

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Read us some more.

Mrs. Dunwoody : I could read more of it in considerable detail. There has always been a common commitment to the beautiful. It was William Morris who said that one should have nothing in one's house that was not either useful or beautiful--and I think he meant, preferably both.

Those of us who want the lives of every citizen of this country to be enriched have always wanted access for those citizens to the best of our literature, translated or otherwise--even translations from Celtic enrich those who read them. We want access to museums, to art galleries and to the best of all real art. But the great dearth of culture in the lives of many of those who serve will not be filled by any of this nonesense. Their culture grows out of their interests and their views, and who are we to gainsay them? This article does not deal with that problem, and it does nothing about the dearth of money--money that is needed to help to create the essential arts. In my constituency, a small unit teaches teachers to enrich the lives of small children using computers in fabric design, picture design and writing music. I have seen the children in question freed from the pressures of having to draw up staves and create tunes by working them out in their heads. They can use the keyboards and computers to compose music. That is the sort of project that we should be pursuing. Nowhere in the Community does it happen, because it would be regarded as beneath those in the Commission who are full-time cultural employees, concerned only with their manipulative powers to control from Brussels.

That is what this is about. It has nothing to do with culture. It is concerned with the extension of the powers of the Community. As such, I would go along with my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley and her fellow occupants of the Opposition Front Bench if they voted on removing the provision.

I would take that view not because I am against culture--even though my ex- husband always used it as a word of denigration ; even I know that one must have an expensive public school education before one can be rude about culture--but because I do not see that we are discussing an area in which the EC has any right, legitimate interest or vision of what it is doing. It should not interfere where it has no business to stray.

Mr. Budgen : It would be disgraceful if I spoke for long, because my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden), who was a distinguished Minister at the Department of Education, will undoubtedly have a unique contribution to make to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge- Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is also anxious to speak, for he has a strong view about the expression of British identity which is endangered by the article that we are discussing.

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We are aware of the vigorously authoritarian attitude that is being pursued by the Government in bashing the Bill through the House. They will do their best, by the means available to them, to prevent my hon. Friends from expressing their views. I shall not do the business of the Whips by speaking for too long, thereby excluding my hon. Friends who have distinguished contributions to make to this important debate.

In a long and important contribution, the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) demonstrated what can be described as the progressive force of the Community. She says of article 128, "My goodness, this is a jolly good little article. This is a provision by which we in the Labour party can encourage the institutions of the Community to use their power to subvert the will of the British people, as for the time being expressed in electing a Conservative Government to power.

"We," says the hon. Lady, "would like to see rather more money spent on the arts. We should also like to see local authorities interfered with by a Labour Government in imposing various architectural standards and standards of expenditure. Sadly, we have not been elected by the British people to carry out those proposals, so let us see if we can get them enforced on the British people by a European side wind."

The hon. Lady then uses article 128 as a way of subverting our constitution, and she suggests ways by which it could be extended. As we know, certain people in the Commission would support her in those aspirations. In addition, the European Court, sometimes called a progressive institution, would be pleased to support the aspirations of the Commission in extending the power of the European institutions. So it is easy to see how article 128 could be used for the purposes which the hon. Member for Cynon Valley suggests. For those and other reasons, it is important that we hear the views of the Committee before a vote is taken on the subject.

It is easy for the Minister to look at a narrow interpretation of article 128 and say that the British Government are not likely to agree to it being extended by the Commission or by any of those in the EEC with federal aspirations. But the most dangerous feature of the way in which business is done in the Community is the trade-off. Consider, for example, the trade- off which allows a British Conservative Government to applaud even the extension of cohesion funds and to pretend that that extension fits easily with the philosophy of the Government, in so far as they have any philosophy. 6.15 pm

I understand that the Government now pride themselves on having none. In the bad old days when we had a British Conservative Government with a philosophy, it used to be rather uncomfortable to return with proposals for rapidly increasing expenditure in the EEC. In the bad old days when Lady Thatcher was leading the Conservative party, she used to find it disagreeable to explain that she had agreed, as part of a trade-off, to increases in expenditure. When it is said that we do not particularly want the soldiers of the Cheshire Regiment or, as it may become, the Staffordshire Regiment, unhappily risking their lives for European purposes in Bosnia ; and when, as may be the case, this House begins to express its distaste for the

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European purposes of the Commission in the old Yugoslavia, it is likely that somebody will ask, "If you are going to take your troops away, do you think you could give us a bit more money for European culture?" So, rather than saying no to everything, the trade-off will be a slightly more progressive attitude towards article 128. As I said, I shall be brief, because I am anxious that my hon. Friends are not excluded by the authoritarian attitude of the Whips from expressing their attitude towards the subject-- [Interruption.] I hope that they will not only give their attitude but take action. Indeed, I am anxious that we hear the views of the whole House. Article 128 is no insignificant matter, because it is to be considered a means of supporting and enhancing the identity of the European state. Why does any state subscribe money to the arts? In our modern democracies, money is sometimes given simply to buy support, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is so crude as to point out-- [Interruption.] He is a very good man, whose views I summarise by saying that he points out that sometimes the funds subscribed by working-class taxpayers are used to buy middle-class support for expensive shows for which the middle class would rather themselves not pay entirely.

That is state expenditure of a modern, democratic sort. Much reference has been made to state expenditure on the arts in the past. It is pointed out that the Medici spent a great deal of money. That happened not because the Medici were demonstrating, as they spent their money on art, that they had a particularly warm feeling for their citizens and were saying, "We must never poison another human being."

Mr. Cormack : Perhaps my hon. Friend is referring to the Borgias.

Mr. Budgen : Let us not go in for another assassination : let us respect the dignity of our citizens. The Medicis decided to put some cash into culture to demonstrate the power, the authority and the identity of their state. That is what article 128 is about : it is designed to allow those who wish to enhance the identity of the European state to give money to promote that aim.

I listened with care to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). I wonder what my attitude would be if I were a Welsh nationalist and there was before Parliament a measure authorising expenditure on the making of the Union Jack. I would vote against it, because the Union Jack is a symbol of the authority and identity of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent) : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Budgen : I should like to finish this peroration, and shall deliver a second one when I have had time to draw breath. Article 128 is designed to enhance the identity of the European state, and that is no more and no less than what every state has done throughout the ages. It has taken money from the taxpayer to enforce its power and enhance its identity.

Mr. Rowe : I find my hon. Friend's picture more encouraging than the reality, which appears to be that organisations such as the European Community or the Arts Council spend far too much money encouraging

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extremely divergent cultures and do their level best to revive minority cultures that would be better consigned to oblivion.

Mr. Budgen : In a democracy, Governments use cultural subsidies to buy the support of various groups. I shall give an example. Until recently, Wolverhampton council was for a long time controlled by the Labour party and used to buy the support of ethnic groups by offering subsidies to ethnic theatres. Of course, that is not much different from the Government offering to support the middle class and trying to buy their votes by giving enhanced grants to the Arts Council. That is an inescapable part of the modern democratic process, but it has been the practice throughout the centuries for the state to spend money on culture to enhance its authority. Of course, article 128 does not state the honest federalism of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) but slips it in slowly and surreptitiously, carefully and hypocritically, and deals with

"bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore."

I do not know when European cultural policy will have a new boost. Perhaps it will be in 1996, when there is a mark 2 Maastricht treaty or when, eventually, the true federal nature of the European institutions will be unclothed a little more. Article 128 is just as much an expression of European identity as the provisions for European citizenship. Those of us who are British nationalists want to reject it all.

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