Mr President, it is not often that a politician of my calibre gets to speak to such a packed and huge audience. I should like to thank all the interpreters for staying behind. I understand that my speech leaked out to the rest of the Members of Parliament beforehand, hence their disappearance in mass numbers. Many of the interpreters, I am sure, would have liked to have studied on a Erasmus course when they were learning their languages and studying at university. I, as a British Conservative, often find fault – and it is very easy to find fault – with many of the programmes organised and paid for by the European Commission and the European Union. However I have a soft spot for Erasmus because it is very difficult to find fault with that particular programme. It seems to achieve some of the results that it actually expects. This survey is a fascinating one, carried out in 1998. It was fascinating that so many students actually bothered to take part in filling out a form and sending it back to the Commission. The one problem, I suppose, with the results of the survey was that they were reported after we had decided on the Socrates II programme and the Erasmus parts of it. We could have drawn some very useful information from this survey on the socio-economic circumstances of students on Erasmus courses at that time. There are a number of interesting facts and figures. I could bore you with them but they are all contained within the explanatory statement of the report and in the Commission report itself. But there are a few that I have a great deal of interest in. Certainly of the people who took an Erasmus course in 1998 and bothered to reply to the questionnaire 98% found that the programme was extremely positive or at least very positive. Ninety-one percent were over the moon with what had happened to them on the course. It is a shame that 57% of them experienced financial hardship as a result of their particular Erasmus course. One wonders whether, when only half the money is being spent on the Erasmus places being taken up, (half are left open at the end of each year) the money could not be better redistributed within Erasmus itself. When I initially tabled my report I put forward a few controversial ideas just to see if anybody bothered to read what was going on. Fortunately two or three Members (and the Commission as well) did read them. A number noticed little points that I had to then retract. But one which is still there in point 4 of my report, which I would like to underline, is the part that condemns any internal discrimination practised in Member States. If you had trouble getting on a higher education course in Austria for example, because you were of a certain race, this place would have been in a complete uproar. But that is exactly what is going on in my own country at the moment, with English students who want to study in Scotland being penalised financially by the Scottish Executive. So I really wanted to keep that in my report. I sneaked it in there and it stayed pretty much hidden until now, and I would like to reveal it to the very few people who are in the Chamber tonight. I look forward to my new Labour colleagues voting on this particular matter. I believe it is slightly too late to ask for a split vote. I have also tabled a couple of amendments. One helps with a bit of punctuation, a bit of grammar on the particular passage in point 4, the second in point 6. In the committee stage of this report part of a sentence was added which said: 'considers that the survey's findings should be taken as an opportunity to review national higher educational policies'. I do not think it is in the remit of this report or this place or the Commission to ask for that. So I have tabled an amendment which would delete that. A third amendment which I have tabled has changed just one word in the English language version from 'regrets' to 'notes'. I really enjoyed working with the Commission and all the people that have helped me. I would like to end by thanking those who helped me with this report, especially my researcher Nicky Smith, who waded through every single statistic. We contacted every university and vice-chancellor in the UK and many across Europe to ask for their comments on this report. I commend it to the House.

Political group: PPE-DE