Jack Straw presses for repatriation of over £4bn of EU funds to Britain
Straw is leading a group of senior Labour MPs who are calling for structural funds to be spent in deprived areas of the country
Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
Jack Straw wants £4.2bn of EU funds to be repatriated to Britain to ensure that support is better targeted at deprived areas. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, will on Monday call on David Cameron to repatriate £4.2bn in EU funds to Britain to ensure that support is better targeted at deprived areas of the country.
As European leaders examine proposals on Monday at summit in Brussels to spend more than €80bn (£67bn) of structural funds across the EU on boosting economic growth, Straw leads a group of senior Labour MPs calling for the cash to be allocated by Britain.
The intervention by Straw comes as the campaign for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU gathers momentum with the launch of a cross-party group which is to hold a series of polls around the country. In an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free section, the Labour chair of the Commons backbench business committee, Natascha Engel, writes that the People's Pledge would give people a voice on Europe for the first time in 40 years.
Engel, who voted in favour of a referendum last October in a commons vote tabled by her committee, writes: "The People's Pledge … will trigger the biggest grassroots campaign for an EU referendum we've ever seen in this country. Real voters in their tens of thousands will be voting for a say on our country's relationship with the EU."
The People's Pledge is supported by some of the 17 Labour MPs who have joined Straw in calling for the repatriation of EU structural funds to Britain. The former foreign secretary, one of the most eurosceptic members of the last government, says the government should adopt an idea floated in 2003 by Gordon Brown to repatriate the funds, which are the billions of pounds in EU money targeted at less well-off regions, mainly in the new member states that joined in 2004.
The MPs' letter cites a report by the Open Europe thinktank, published last week, which calculated that Britain would be better off by £4.2bn under the changes. The MPs write: "Some of the most deprived UK regions are short-changed by the structural funds because EU allocations are based on inflexible, one-size-fits all criteria. For instance, the West Midlands have the lowest disposable income per capita in the UK yet pays the EU £3.55 for every £1 it receives back in structural funding, according to Open Europe estimates."
The call by the Labour MPs comes as European leaders examine a proposal to spend €82bn (£69bn) of unallocated structural funds to boost growth. Britain's share of these funds – the amount still left to be spent in the 2007-13 EU budget period – stands at €1.4bn.
José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, which allocates structural funds across the EU, wants to use the funds to tackle youth unemployment and help small and medium-sized enterprises.
Many Eurosceptic Labour figures support the People's Pledge campaign. But pro-Europeans such as the former Europe minister Keith Vaz also support a referendum.
Pro-Europeans will are also calling on the government to make the most of British membership of the EU and to help stabilise the eurozone. In a joint letter to the Guardian, 18 pro-European MPs and peers from the three main parties write: "The wellbeing of our economy is linked both to the wellbeing of the eurozone and the single market as a whole. We call on the government to remain involved in efforts to reform the eurozone and lead initiatives to expand the single market and make Britain and the EU more competitive in a globalised world."
The letter is signed by Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leaders, and by Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader.COPY http://www.guardian.co.uk/
As European leaders examine proposals on Monday at summit in Brussels to spend more than €80bn (£67bn) of structural funds across the EU on boosting economic growth, Straw leads a group of senior Labour MPs calling for the cash to be allocated by Britain.
The intervention by Straw comes as the campaign for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU gathers momentum with the launch of a cross-party group which is to hold a series of polls around the country. In an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free section, the Labour chair of the Commons backbench business committee, Natascha Engel, writes that the People's Pledge would give people a voice on Europe for the first time in 40 years.
Engel, who voted in favour of a referendum last October in a commons vote tabled by her committee, writes: "The People's Pledge … will trigger the biggest grassroots campaign for an EU referendum we've ever seen in this country. Real voters in their tens of thousands will be voting for a say on our country's relationship with the EU."
The People's Pledge is supported by some of the 17 Labour MPs who have joined Straw in calling for the repatriation of EU structural funds to Britain. The former foreign secretary, one of the most eurosceptic members of the last government, says the government should adopt an idea floated in 2003 by Gordon Brown to repatriate the funds, which are the billions of pounds in EU money targeted at less well-off regions, mainly in the new member states that joined in 2004.
The MPs' letter cites a report by the Open Europe thinktank, published last week, which calculated that Britain would be better off by £4.2bn under the changes. The MPs write: "Some of the most deprived UK regions are short-changed by the structural funds because EU allocations are based on inflexible, one-size-fits all criteria. For instance, the West Midlands have the lowest disposable income per capita in the UK yet pays the EU £3.55 for every £1 it receives back in structural funding, according to Open Europe estimates."
The call by the Labour MPs comes as European leaders examine a proposal to spend €82bn (£69bn) of unallocated structural funds to boost growth. Britain's share of these funds – the amount still left to be spent in the 2007-13 EU budget period – stands at €1.4bn.
José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, which allocates structural funds across the EU, wants to use the funds to tackle youth unemployment and help small and medium-sized enterprises.
Many Eurosceptic Labour figures support the People's Pledge campaign. But pro-Europeans such as the former Europe minister Keith Vaz also support a referendum.
Pro-Europeans will are also calling on the government to make the most of British membership of the EU and to help stabilise the eurozone. In a joint letter to the Guardian, 18 pro-European MPs and peers from the three main parties write: "The wellbeing of our economy is linked both to the wellbeing of the eurozone and the single market as a whole. We call on the government to remain involved in efforts to reform the eurozone and lead initiatives to expand the single market and make Britain and the EU more competitive in a globalised world."
The letter is signed by Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Liberal Democrat leaders, and by Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader.COPY http://www.guardian.co.uk/
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