European Communities (Finance) Bill

Nobody is talking about us getting a windfall from them. Conservative Members are scrutinising the Government on how they managed to give up such a large slice of our UK rebate, which is a totally different matter. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I have been to eastern Europe on many occasions. During visits to farms in Romania, for instance, we find that they are taking a great deal of our British taxpayers' money, but simply not complying with the rules and regulations that our farmers have to comply with. We should have stood up for the British national interest during these negotiations. As hon. Friends have said, we should have used the veto in these discussions on the rebate. We are too important and big a country not to be able to stand up and use our veto. That would have been possible, and it should have been used. We have tremendous support across Europe, not necessarily over the rebate but certainly over the future of the EU. Many eastern European countries are very troubled about Brussels railroading them on some of their concerns and the Franco-German control of agenda setting in the EU. They want to challenge that stranglehold, and they look to the UK for leadership. I feel passionately about that and will try to help my party find the right-of-centre partners in eastern Europe that the Minister spoke about. [Interruption.] He laughs from a sedentary position, but there are in fact many young right-of-centre politicians across Europe, such as myself, who feel passionately about having a European Union of sovereign states that trade and want to work together in co-operation, but also to guard their own sovereignty. There are a lot of them; I can assure the Minister that I myself have spoken to many young right-of-centre politicians from across eastern Europe who will work together to ensure that that happens. In 1984 Margaret Thatcher showed that it was possible for the UK to fight for a rebate, and I wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous courage she displayed all those years ago in standing up for our country's interests. It is clear that the current Prime Minister played a large role in the debacle over handing back our EU rebate. He was in constant contact with the former Prime Minister—Blair. He has built a reputation of having been an iron Chancellor, but he displayed a great deal of weakness over the EU rebate. I wish to put it on the record that I am very disappointed about the lack of help from Poland and other eastern European states in the negotiations over the UK rebate. I have openly stated to many politicians from Poland and other eastern European countries how disappointed I am that they did not come to our aid over these critical negotiations. Britain has done more for Poland than any other European country has, and it is very disappointing that on this one occasion when Britain needed help and support from her allies in eastern Europe, Poland and others did not do anything to support us. Britain was, after all, at the forefront of getting them into the EU. Little has been said about the accounts, which have not been signed off. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford suggested that Opposition Members were trying to whip up hysteria about them. While trying not to be rabid on the issue, I must say to him that it is concerning if the media report repeatedly, year after year, that there have been complications and difficulties with the auditing of accounts. All of us want to ensure that those accounts are watertight and can be presented to constituents as representing value for money.