Exchequer tap runs dry for the pro-Europeans

Tory Euro-sceptics have been assured by Ministers that there will be no further Government cash for the pro-EU European Movement, the all-party campaign for closer European integration.

Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Hanley has written to Neil Hamilton, the strongly Thatcherite former Minister, to say: "There are no plans to offer financial assistance in future years."

Richard Shepherd, a Conservative MP who had the party whip withdrawn following a 1994 Commons revolt on Europe, told the Independent yesterday: "That must be appropriate. There has to be equal funding between the two propositions; for and against."

Between 1969 and 1975, Government gave the movement annual grants of around pounds 20,000.

That was stopped by Labour in 1975, but the payments resumed under Margaret Thatcher in 1981 - to the tune of pounds 30,000 a year.

It was then decided in 1985 that the annual funding should be phased out, although a "one-off" grant of pounds 30,000 was paid to the movement in 1992, "to fund a series of regional conferences on the Maastricht treaty".

A further"one-off" grant of pounds 10,000 was made in January, 1994 - "to help attract corporate sponsorship". However, it is unlikely that the European Movement will be embarrassed by the Foreign office decision to turn off the Exchequer tap.

A spokesman said yesterday that it had an annual income of about pounds 400,000, mainly from private business and individual sponsors including David Sainsbury, of Sainsbury store fame.

This contrasts with the more cash-strapped campaign of the "anti"European Foundation, which was severely embarrassed in June by the disclosure that it was receiving financial assistance from Sir James Goldsmith, the founder of the Referendum Party, and which has a budget in the order of only pounds 120,00 a year.