EU Financial Management

I was about to say that national Governments should distribute funding according to their needs; they should make the judgment about which of their regions needs money. Indeed, the Chancellor has suggested that as and when our regional fund benefits disappear, as poorer member states join, extra funds will be substituted by the Treasury, which is right. However, we in the House are the best judges of which regions need more or less money. We should make those decisions and the situation is the same for other countries. Distribution should be proportionate to relative GDP per head in member states and they should make their own decisions. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about regionalisation. I am seriously concerned that building up the regions is an attempt to play down the Governments of member nation states. I cannot accept that. Member state Governments are the political entities in which the majority of people believe. I do not suggest that nation states should be nationalistic, but national Governments should have the final responsibility for the welfare of their citizens. The central Governments of member states should have that democratic role, which should not be undermined by the EU building up the regions and playing down member state Governments. That would be a great mistake. We have an ongoing problem with the European Union. We are tinkering at the edges of the corruption and incompetence with which the budget is managed, and fundamental change will be necessary if we are to overcome the problems. We have to deal with the fundamental problem that people and institutions in the member states—farmers and so on—are spending other people’s money and that that is somehow all right. It has even been suggested that the glue holding the EU together is the fact that money is sloshing about and everybody gets a bit of the action. That is not the way to approach democratic politics. We should know what we are spending our money on and vote to spend it as appropriate, collectively in democratic member states and, where necessary, at minimal level, through the EU. As the Government have said many times, the EU should be an association of independent, democratic member states working together for their mutual benefit, where appropriate. It should not be the beginnings of a European state, which many of us would reject.