EU Financial Management

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I agree about the commons fisheries policy. The European Union would be much more attractive to existing members, as well as to potential new members, if it worked better and was seen to be more just, fair and effective. I can think of a number of ways in which it should be reformed. However, I wish to stick to the topic of the budget and how the money is spent. The other matter about which I am concerned, as is the Department for International Development, is the aid budget. That budget is spent ineffectively, is subject to some corruption and it goes to the wrong places. It has been heavily criticised by DFID Ministers, both privately and publicly. I have suggested two possibilities for that budget. The first is that it should be repatriated and member states should be required to contribute a proportion of their GDP to aid. Perhaps the proportion might be higher for the richest nations. There should be a formulaic approach to aid so that we make sure we pay enough, but it should be distributed through national Governments or national Governments in collaboration. The second suggestion involves DFID, because it is recognised as doing a good job with aid and as not being corrupt. I have not supported some of its policies regarding privatisation, but it is highly regarded. I have the greatest regard for our present Secretary of State for International Development, whom I have heard speak on many occasions, who does an extremely good job. If the aid budget for the European Union were handed over to Britain to manage on a franchise basis, I am sure that we would do a much better job than the European Union and that the aid would go to the right places. Some of the problems with that budget relate to the fact that national interests dictate that some aid goes to slightly richer countries around the rim of the Mediterranean rather than to sub-Saharan Africa where the need is greatest. We have to repatriate the aid budget or introduce fundamental reforms, perhaps even hand it over to DFID to manage. With our present Secretary of State, we would do a good job. Other aspects of the European Union budget will cause problems. It irritates me when I walk through my town centre and see a large notice, with a big, blue flag with yellow stars on it, saying that the town is to be modernised with money from the European Union. We are massive net contributors to that budget. It is our money, not the European Union’s money, that is paying for the modernisation, but the EU gives the impression that it is a benign Father Christmas delivering money to Britain, when actually we are Father Christmas giving money to the European Union. I am not suggesting that we should not give fairly to the budget. Indeed, I have suggested on many occasions that if we had a budget in which contributions and receipts were exactly proportional to living standards in member states, so that richest give most and the poorest receive most, that could be seen to be fair. One could just look at a sliding scale and see a graph of how it worked. Everybody would say that that system was fine and they would sign up to it. But the current budget does not work like that; the CAP distorts it and makes it look unfair.