As the Minister points out, that should be a reason for some people to support the programme, but actually I do not necessarily agree with the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for reasons I shall explain.
I have some observations and questions for the Minister about these two major themes in the Bill. As he has explained, EU documents will be archived at the European University Institute in Florence so that future historians can benefit from complete records. The Clerk of the House has explained to me that our own material is archived in Victoria Tower. Will the Minister tell the House—[Interruption.] Could he stop talking to his Parliamentary Private Secretary and listen to me? Would the EU institutions be able to make duplicates in vellum as we do in this Parliament?
The Minister said that the Bill does not cover the documents of the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. The ECB position is rather controversial, given our own decision, in 1997, to publish, after only six weeks, the meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee. Expectation management is an important part of monetary policy, so I wonder why we are not seeing the ECB papers in the same way. The whole exercise cannot be described as a measure to improve transparency, given the decision to keep everything secret for 30 years. Who decided that these documents should be kept secret for 30 years and why? My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), who sadly is not in his place, has commented on Mrs Thatcher’s approach to the miners’ strike, demonstrating how few people can fully understand the significance of papers when they are kept locked up for 30 years.
The aim of the citizens’ programme is to improve how citizens participate in and contribute to the EU by strengthening remembrance and common values and encouraging a broader engagement and debate. The budget is €185 million, so by my calculation about £7 million will be spent in this country—not, I would suggest, a vast amount. The Minister has said what he thinks we will contribute to the budget, but I wonder whether he can say how much of it he thinks will be spent in the UK.
As the Minister said, 20% of the money will go towards commemorating the world wars and victims of totalitarianism. The Government are spending some £50 million on commemorating world war one. If the remarks of the Secretary of State for Education and the decision to put Lord Kitchener on the £2 coin are anything to go by, the Government are embarking on an unnecessarily jingoistic approach, which this EU programme might usefully counterbalance.
I want to ask the Minister how the funds will be distributed. It is unfortunate that world war one appears only fleetingly for children in key stage 3, so a little more understanding can only be a good thing. Will the money for the commemoration of the world wars be distributed in its own channel, or will it be bundled up with the money the Government are spending directly and through the Heritage Lottery Fund?
As the Minister said, the major part of the moneys will be used on EU citizenship projects for learning and twinning. Since the major wave of twinning took place in the late-1970s, just after we joined the Common Market, and given that the EU now has 22 member states, it seems a good idea to give this initiative fresh impetus so that new relationships can be built across the Union.