European Communities (Finance) Bill

It would be fantastic if that were the case, but unfortunately it was a hard fight even to get Cornwall recognised as a distinctive economic region in its own right, which neither the Conservative nor the current Government were prepared to countenance. Only through the work of the then MEP Robin Teverson, now Lord Teverson, was the area identified as an economic entity in its own right. The second point that the right hon. Gentleman made was about the need for reform of the common agricultural policy and about how we should make the most of our opportunities. However, as I shall explain, we had an opportunity but we passed up on it. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are not going to engage in anti-European rants. We have always been clear that we take a constructive, pro-European approach, which we do not intend to change. We welcome the fact that the EU has brought a period of unparalleled peace and prosperity to Europe, and that there has been successful integration with new member states. However, that does not mean that there is no need for a proper public debate about the future of Britain's relationship with the European Union. Over our 35 years as a member state we have seen the EU widen its membership and share sovereignty, from Mrs. Thatcher's Single European Act to a succession of treaties agreed by both Conservative and Labour Governments. The EU has changed beyond recognition since 1973, which means that the need for a renewed debate has never been greater. Since 1997 Labour has given away powers, but has refused to make the positive case for Europe and engage in a proper debate about the direction of the EU. The Conservatives, who promoted closer integration without referendums while in government, now indulge in populism of the worst kind, calling for a referendum to mask their own divisions. So let us have that proper debate. That debate could be achieved by a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. That was raised on the Liberal Democrat Benches during the debate on the Loyal Address, and I was proud to walk through the Lobby supporting our amendment, which would have delivered that. I was disappointed that the Conservatives chose to oppose such a proposal, or are they afraid that too many Conservatives Members would vote to withdraw from the EU altogether? Instead, the Conservatives will use the debate on the treaty as a proxy for that debate, despite the fact that it has much narrower terms. I am sure that those opposed to EU membership altogether will take the opportunity to air their views then, but much of the treaty is in fact about the practicalities of dealing with an enlarged EU, such as whether we need 27 commissioners. We need to see the Bill in the context of that wider debate about a constructive approach. Although the Bill is short, it gives effect to the new own resources decision made by the European Council on 7 June 2007. The Bill sets out the new financial framework for the EU for 2007 to 2013, the basis of which was agreed under the UK presidency in Brussels, in December 2005. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that the EU is good for the UK. We support measures to enable smooth running of the expansion of EU membership, and we believe that it would be wrong to defend an arrangement under which we were recipients of funding from eastern Europe. Those measures were part of the negotiations for a new financial framework—a part that we wholeheartedly supported, because we wish to support the poorer parts of the European Union, which means those in the UK as well as in the new accession states. The key point is that the negotiating objective was to trade the rebate against fundamental change. The question we must ask is: could the Government have done more in trying to achieve that fundamental negotiating objective? The Minister has not conceded today that the end result was a bad deal for the UK. It was a bad deal because the former Prime Minister totally failed us in the negotiating process during his six-month presidency of the EU. He seemed to think that any deal was better than none at all. The result is a bad deal, caused by the Government failing to identify, let alone secure, their objectives. That result is more the legacy of the former Prime Minister than the vision of the current one, which is probably why he chose not to raise it in the Queen's Speech. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, liked talking about grand ambition and using radical rhetoric about reforming the EU, but when he had his golden opportunity he failed to deliver. He totally mishandled the negotiating process before it had even started. He spent most of 2005 saying that the rebate was non-negotiable. Clearly, however, it was negotiable, and was actually being negotiated at the time he was saying that it was not. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) spoke earlier about negotiating skills; perhaps he should have shared some of his expertise with the then Prime Minister, who completely failed in that regard. Such a position resulted not only in the Government looking foolish. It also meant that they could not open up terms of compromise from anyone else. Perhaps it would have been better to say, ““Okay, we'll put our rebate on the table if you're prepared to talk about the serious reform of the common agricultural policy.”” But they did not, so they had absolutely no hope of delivering reform of that kind. The best that they could do was to cave in on the rebate, while giving the pathetic excuse that it related only to the expansion elements, and not to those linked to the CAP. This was the area of greatest opportunity, and of greatest failure. Too much was given up in return for too little reform. There was an opportunity for a long-term strategy to be put in place, but the former Prime Minister bottled it. Instead of a long-term sustainable solution to CAP reform being found, the issue was effectively kicked into touch, with a full review of EU spending and resources by the Commission scheduled to report in 2008-09. In other words, it will become someone else's problem. Today's debate has highlighted the fact that the urgent need for CAP reform has still not been addressed. We have seen significant reform, but we need to go further. It was good to see the reforms in 2003. Despite the problems that the Government have had with the administration of the single farm payment, it is less bureaucratic than its predecessor systems, and it is no longer awarded on the basis of production. However, there is still a need to go further, to increase trading opportunities for developing countries while safeguarding the changing rural economy. The Government should have been more ambitious in what they believed they could achieve. The Treasury set out its vision, to ““stimulate and inform debate””, on 2 December—about the same time as the meeting in Brussels took place. This gave an indication of where it believed the EU needed to be in 10 to15 years' time. Operating on that time scale, the Brussels Council should have been crucial to taking the first steps, yet that opportunity was missed. The Treasury document highlighted many of the issues that need to be tackled and, yes, tariffs remain one of the key obstacles to further and more fundamental reform. The Government's position in 2002, in failing to secure a renegotiation of the CAP, not only undermined their position at the summit in Brussels in 2005, but also impacted on the subsequent World Trade Organisation negotiations. Instead of kicking the issue into the long grass with the review, the Government should have looked much more closely at potential co-financing arrangements and at splitting the responsibility 50-50 between the EU and the national Governments. This would have had a much greater impact on the rebate than the measure that we are debating here today and the sums of money that we are talking about. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury talked about the way in which resources had been allocated across from pillar one to pillar two of the common agricultural policy. Those are the kinds of issues that really should have been pushed at the Brussels Council. Such an approach at Brussels would have helped to bring decision-making powers—and with them, decisions over resources—back from Brussels to a more local level within the UK. That would have put money back into rural communities, using public money for the delivery of public goods. It would have encouraged food to be produced and sold locally to high animal welfare and environmental standards, which would have cut food miles and ensured sustainability. Fundamentally, it would have made a real difference, but the opportunity to get those changes moving was wasted.