I am grateful to have the opportunity, with the leave of the House, to respond to the debate, which has been wrapped up by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). There was an element of disloyalty from my acting Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who said to me during the debate, “You’d better hope that you don’t follow him.” I think that that was a reference to the rhetorical qualities of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, who certainly did not disappoint. It is my sad lot to have to follow his excellent and perspicacious speech.
My hon. Friend pointed out that I have been without friends on the Front Bench for most of the debate. It is true that we invited Justice Ministers to wind up the debate, because archives are obviously an important element of their portfolio, but for some reason we found that none was available. It is therefore down to me, with the leave of the House, to wind up the debate.
It is very rare for a Minister to open and close a Second Reading debate—[Interruption.] Apart from two weeks ago, it is a very rare event. [Interruption.] It happens all the time, according to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Here I am, however, closing a debate that I opened. Let me begin by asking the hon. Gentleman not to intervene from a sedentary position. Frankly, if he has something to say, he should come to the Dispatch Box and say it. [Interruption.] He is trying it again, but let me move on.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on her response to my opening remarks. She raised several points that I want to address. In relation to archives, she asked whether European institutions can deposit their documents written on vellum. That is not part of the regulations that we are debating and approving. It is of course welcome that she takes a traditionalist view of how documents should be written and archived, but it is rather sad that when any spending opportunity presents itself, she seizes the moment.
It is true that the European Central Bank will not deposit its documents in the archive. Its situation is similar to that of the Bank of England, which does not
deposit its archives at the National Archives. To be frank, the hon. Lady’s point was more to do with the general issue of whether the European Central Bank is transparent enough, which is nothing to do with today’s debate.
The hon. Lady asked how much money will be spent in the UK. Many hon. Members debated the issue of how much is likely to be spent. Normally, we would expect to see a return on our investment of about 5% to 10%. Any money to support commemorations for world war one, for example, would not be part of the Government’s main programme of commemoration, but to support programmes involving different countries across Europe.
The hon. Lady said that I am not doing well enough on stopping the export of objects that have been legitimately purchased. I remind her that our export ban system has been in place for 60 years. The delay to the Bill was simply to do with finding parliamentary time.
We heard excellent speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), and my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and, of course, for North East Somerset.
I must say that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone made a fantastic contribution. It was generous to me, and it showed off his remarkable knowledge of the subject from his 30 years of looking at European issues.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber described the Bill as “gentle”, “timorous” and “meek, mild and inoffensive”. I think he was making a plea to hon. Members not to be cruel to the Bill, but to shepherd it through with the utmost care and attention. He mentioned that the funds in one of the regulations supported the European Movement, of which he is the UK president and which, of course, was started by Sir Winston Churchill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud made a very good point when he reminded us that this debate was happening because of the Conservative party and the Bill we passed, in the teeth of opposition from Labour, to give the House the opportunity to scrutinise European legislation. It is shocking, when we see the House filled up with people ready to scrutinise European legislation, that Labour still refuses to give the British people a say on their membership of Europe. It is only by voting Conservative that the British people will get a say, in a referendum, on whether we should remain a member of the EU.
My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry welcomed the scrutiny, but asked for a rebalancing of the project. He is the chairman of the Royal and Derngate theatre, and it is welcome to see him in that position. We will always find examples, as he did, of funded projects with which we disagree, but I know, as someone responsible for funding the Arts Council—I do not want to start another debate—and looking at the distribution of lottery funds, that we will always find funded projects with which we disagree and many projects we think should be funded that are not. That is in the nature of it. The process for getting funding will involve an open application system, and we should encourage people to make applications, should the House support the regulation, as there is no reason, in principle, why they should not receive funding.
This has been a lively, enjoyable and informative debate. It remains for me to conclude on the most important issue, which is of course the wedding anniversary of the hon. Member for North East Somerset. It falls on St Canute’s day. It is said in Scandinavia that good St Thomas brought Christmas and the evil Canute took it away. The death of Canute started a minor European civil war, and it is important to remember that this fund will commemorate some horrific events in Europe that are worth commemorating—the totalitarian nature of Stalinism and Nazism and the holocaust, as well as the carnage of the great war.
But I am running out of things to say. I will not refer to the Venetian ambassador. I simply commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.