EU Financial Management

I have given one example of an attempt to perpetrate a fraud—one that, ironically, used the name of OLAF itself. However, history shows first, that the EU institutions have been bad at pinpointing fraud, especially in agriculture and structural funds; and secondly, that even when they have succeeded in pinpointing fraud, they have been poor at recovering money on behalf of the European taxpayer. The hon. Gentleman touches on two weaknesses in the system and has allowed me two bites of the cherry, for which I am grateful. The Government have backed a road map for making progress on the issue but, as events in the middle east have starkly reminded us, it is one thing to lay out a road map and quite another to see it through to fruition. Our position on the road map being able to achieve meaningful financial reform of the EU is that that may be worthy in principle, but we will believe it when we see it. Finally, whatever the Minister says this evening, I am sorry to report to the House that the British people have recently been defrauded of some £7 billion of their own money, although not, in fairness, by some distant European Union institution, but by a Prime Minister desperate for a legacy—even one with massive price tag attached.