It would be a bit of a surprise if I did not agree with my hon. Friend, whose constituency is next door to mine.
I believe that one could honestly make the argument that the programme has failed unbelievably badly. Over the past seven years, a group of organisations has received money from it. The European Movement, which states that its objective is to
“contribute to the establishment of a united, federal Europe”,
was awarded the best part of £1.5 million.
The French think-tank, Notre Europe, the Jacques Delors Institute—I will not go into as much detail on this as I did on Second Reading, as my hon. Friend the Minister is now completely up to speed with how moneys from this budget line are spent—was set up by the former European Commission President and champions his vision of a European Union that is a federation of nation states. Over the last multi-annual financial framework period, it was awarded the best part of £1.87 million from the Europe for Citizens programme. The Brussels-based Union of European Federalists got the best part of £500,000. There are also other organisations that I did not mention last time. There is a wonderful—I say that in a sarcastic tone—French organisation called Confrontations Europe. Its website says:
“On April 2012, Confrontations Europe celebrated its 20 years of existence and dedication to the European ideal…Confrontations Europe has become an important network of citizens and European players, a think tank renowned in Paris and Brussels and an active civil lobby of European general interest to the institutions”—
that is, the European institutions. Everyone here will be pleased to know that the body’s founding chairman, Philippe Herzog, a French former academic and politician, was a member of the French Communist party from 1965 to 1996.