European Communities (Finance) Bill

The Francophobia that always infects these debates is jolly good fun, but there are 25 other member states apart from France and the United Kingdom, in the European Union, and the figures vary. I fully accept that there are grotesque anomalies such as Luxembourg. I am getting into some gruesome detail which I would not want to inflict on the House, but the plain fact is that the Netherlands—our trusty old Protestant ally for 300 years—pays four times, pro rata, what we pay. Why on earth should the Dutch always have to pay part of the British bill? That is how they will see it—ditto the Swedes and the Germans. The Germans have spent 4 per cent. of their gross domestic product, year on year, on East Germany following unification. That is twice to two and a half times what the United States put into western Europe under the Marshall plan. The Germans, with a much bigger problem to solve than we have ever had to face—the incorporation of a bankrupt third-world country, the German Democratic Republic, into the western German Federal Republic—have made huge personal sacrifices as a nation, yet still pay proportionately far more, 35 per cent. more, on last year's figures, than we do. The figures against us are much worse, in terms of Germany, the Netherlands and some of the Nordic countries, during the recent past. If we get into arguments that simply state that whatever happens we must pay less than everybody else, the European Union might as well pack up shop. I fully accept the shadow Chief Secretary's point about the common agricultural policy. I do not deny that for one second. The figure is coming down as a share. Let me read more—I might even be tempted to do it in French this time—from today's Le Figaro, which says in the course of a long article: ““France now accepts that there will have to be a reduction in European Union agricultural expenditure. The debate among the 27 member states will start under the French presidency in the second half of next year. That is when the next pluriannual budget, 2013-2020, will be adopted.”” I would love the Conservatives to address this issue, as well as my own Government, because we are not good enough at explaining to partners with sufficient force and vigour that the way in which the European Union budget is constructed is not necessarily the best way for Europeans. The biggest defenders of the CAP are not the French but the Irish. Ireland—an English-speaking country with a centre-right conservative party, Fianna Fáil, in power—is passionate in defending the CAP. I would invite the Conservatives to talk to Fianna Fáil; I cannot do it, because it is not in the same political family as the Labour party. I would even ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to create a special EU CAP reform persuasion budget that could be given to the Conservatives, so that they could go to talk to all the ruling centre-right parties in Germany, Poland, the Nordic countries, Netherlands, and France—but, as we know, the Conservatives want to effect a total rupture with the EU's other centre-right ruling parties. The UK is extremely badly served by a neo-isolationist attitude whereby they will not go and network politically for the common goals that most people in Britain, across parties, would support.