EU Financial Management

As usual, my right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Part of the situation that we are in now follows on from the fact that an entire Commission resigned on the issue of fraud some seven years ago, and the House, the British people and others across the EU were assured that such issues would be tackled head on as a result of that failure. We are now seven years on from then, and the Economic Secretary now attempts to argue that, at last, such things are being taken seriously and that the problems will be laid to rest in about three years. I want to test some of the arguments that the Economic Secretary has put to the House this evening and press him specifically on some of the details of the road map and how it is supposed to work in principle and how it is likely to work in practice. The road map is now used by the Government, the Council and the Commission as their answer to the challenge of how the problem will be dealt with. It is designed to facilitate the European Court of Auditors being able to sign off the accounts satisfactorily in the not-too-distant future, and I shall come to the timing shortly. In our debate Upstairs on 1 November, the Economic Secretary laid out the concept of the road map, which was initiated by the European Council and then taken up by the Commission as a result. He explained that the Government has sought to press that initiative as part of their presidency of the EU in the second half of last year. I want to press him tonight on how he sees that operating in detail and on what the European Scrutiny Committee in its 15th report of the 2005–06 Session—at page 12 of our bundle tonight—described as his"““rather upbeat assessment of the situation.””" Let us get on to the detail. Will the Economic Secretary give us further information on the timings by which he envisages the process working? Given the history of all this, it seems clear that the problem will hardly be put right overnight. Can he provide some realistic idea of the year in which he expects the objective to be ultimately achieved and the accounts satisfactorily signed off, given that the EU firmly committed itself seven years ago to eradicating the problem? The Minister mentioned 2009, but will he be clear on whether the Government’s stated position is that the accounts should be 100 per cent. signed off in 2009, or do they hope that the percentage signed off will be higher, if not necessarily 100 per cent.? Getting to 100 per cent. only three years from now seems ambitious, so will he be crystal clear about whether he expects to achieve 100 per cent. DAS by 2009?