European Communities (Finance) Bill

Indeed—and a few good men and true on the Labour Benches. As my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge reminded us, not only Opposition parties were unhappy with the deal. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Prime Minister, was reported to be quietly fuming. There was considerable press comment, clearly stimulated by Treasury briefings. Several newspapers reported that ““Mr. Brown was unhappy”” that the deal would cost the UK an extra £1 billion a year and that he had not taken part in final negotiations. Attempts were clearly made to distance the then Chancellor from the deal that Mr. Blair had made. Unattributed briefings on 18 December 2005 stated that Mr. Blair had ““freelanced”” to strike a deal on Friday night and early Saturday morning, without speaking directly to his Chancellor. It was also reported that the disclosures threatened to open up a fresh and damaging rift between the two men and that, under the deal that followed 17 hours of intensive talks, Mr. Blair promised to surrender a further £1.7 billion of the rebate first secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. My maths is not that good, but I believe that that is £100 million given up for every hour of the negotiations. The then Prime Minister, who had set himself such a clear target and easily identified goal, suffered a remarkable defeat in the negotiations. There was further criticism that the way in which the deal was structured would lead to costs being ““back-loaded””. It was suggested that a time bomb had been left for the new Prime Minister who would take office in the next year or two. It was reported that the costs would gradually rise from zero in 2008-09 to £1.9 billion a year by 2013. This Second Reading debate and the Bill, however short, are allegories of everything that brings the House's dealings with EU business into disrepute. We are being asked to approve another £2.3 billion a year after, not before, the event. We all know that the deal was bad. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and even the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor, opposed it. As the right hon. Member for Rotherham told The Daily Telegraph shortly before the deal was made:"““Even out and out pro-Europeans like me could not accept a one-sided deal that only removes the rebate. That would be very difficult to get through.””"