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Future EU Finances and Own Resources

If the fund were part of state aid, I would agree with the hon. Gentleman. However, I understand that the new fund is specifically to help the labour force, rather than to help companies reinvest or otherwise protect themselves against competition. If that is the case, it is difficult to see how it could have the negative effects implied by the hon. Gentleman—but it remains to be seen whether it works as a support for adjustment or against adjustment. There is one more element of spending about which some questions need to be asked. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Commission, particularly from the President and others—again, the enthusiasm has been generated for the best of reasons—to set up a European science university as part of the move towards support for integration in the world economy. I support that principle, but last week I participated in an Adjournment debate on science in British universities, and it is clear that British universities are at best sceptical about the concept, because although they have funding problems of their own, they are looking to collaborate across the world, in particular with the United States. They are also interested in securing a better funding formula in the UK, and see little advantage in having a specifically European project concerned with science. At some stage, we need to hear a fuller justification of how the new initiative will add value. We shall oppose the motion, because we feel thatthe fundamental negotiating objectives were not achieved—although, as I have stressed throughout, we are and always have been a pro-European party. We want the European Union project to succeed, and the best way to make it succeed is to ensure that agriculture and the other defective features of the European Union are fundamentally reformed.