EU Financial Management

I thank the hon. Gentleman and look forward to receiving his letter—which is one more than I have received from the Minister. It is an interesting situation when the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) has to come to the Government’s rescue. That does not happen very often and I hope that the Government Whip on duty has taken full note. The best answer that I can give to the hon. Gentleman is that we are seriously concerned about the extent of the Government’s off-balance-sheet liabilities. We would like to have their version of the answer to my question so that we can debate the matter. That is information that the House would genuinely like to have at its disposal. The need to achieve reform of the EU budget is brought into even more stark relief by the Government’s sell-out in respect of our contribution to it, in particular their capitulation on the British rebate. Perhaps the Minister can explain to the House tonight how on earth it makes any sense to give away £7 billion of UK taxpayers’ money via the reduction in the rebate to an institution that cannot even produce a set of accounts to the satisfaction of its own auditors. The Government would be understandably reluctant to continue to pay rate support grant, or its modern equivalent under formula spending share, to any local authority in this country that had only one third of its accounts cleared as satisfactory by the district auditor, so why give away so much more of our taxpayers’ money to the EU? We would be especially pleased to hear a Treasury Minister’s view on that subject, because it is an open secret that the Prime Minister did not even bother to consult the Chancellor during the final hours of the negotiations. Even though the Chancellor now says that he supports the policy, ““Project Gordon”” clearly took the day off. Will the Minister confirm first, that the £7 billion in question was not included in the estimates prepared for the pre-Budget report of 5 December last year, and secondly, that it will now be included in the figures to be presented to the House of Commons and the British taxpayer in the forthcoming Budget on 22 March? It would be helpful to have that confirmation tonight. Tonight, we are discussing the way in which the EU can reform itself and put its own financial house in order. Put simply, if the EU cannot fight fraud effectively and produce a worthy and reliable set of accounts that the European Court of Auditors can legitimately sign off, all its other attempts to win back public confidence are likely to come to naught.