European Communities (Finance) Bill

It is a great pleasure to wind up today's debate. Those of us who deal with Treasury matters are used to Finance Bills, so a Bill with only one operative clause appears somewhat less daunting. The debate has also been a pleasure because of the range of views heard. From Conservative Members, perhaps not surprisingly, we have heard forceful criticism of the deal facing us, and of the consequences that will flow from enacting the Bill. Such contributions were made by my hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). We also heard strong speeches making precisely the same point from Labour Members, particularly the hon. Members for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson). We have also heard the counter view from the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). Until the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) spoke, I thought that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford was going to be in a somewhat isolated and minority position in his own party on this issue—once again—but it was not to be. The simple question dealt with by the Bill is whether the deal obtained by Tony Blair in December 2005 was a good one and in Britain's interests. He went to negotiate with an objective to protect the rebate, to limit EU spending and to reform the CAP. He delivered on none of those. Our gross contributions are up, what we get back is down, and our net contribution is up. Moreover, our negotiating position for the next financing period has been horrendously undermined. The UK will therefore pay the price for this deal not just until 2013 but for the seven years after that. All that has occurred at a time when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham made clear, we had a veto—we had an ability to block something that was clearly against our interests, and we failed to do so. The argument is made that the deal is all about redistribution from the wealthy west to the poorer east. But let us look at the facts—the comparative data. What do they tell us about the winners and losers from the budget settlement and the own- resources decision? The Government will not give us all those figures, but Open Europe has obtained leaked copies of working papers, and there is little link between spending and needs. The highest per capita spending is in the EU's wealthiest country, Luxembourg. In second and third place are two members of the original EU 15, Belgium and Greece, not new accession countries. Ireland, one of the richest countries in Europe, will receive more per person than eight of the 10 accession states. To be fair, there is one western country that does do poorly. The country that does worst in terms of funding is the United Kingdom. How is it spent, this money that will do so much for the eastern countries? Administration costs are rising by 28 per cent. between 2004 and 2013, to £34 billion. Between 2000-06 and 2007-13, the common agricultural policy budget has risen by 12 per cent. The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West made a good point about the need to return structural funds to member states, a point also made by the Prime Minister in the past, but that has not happened either: it is another failed negotiating objective. The accounts, of course, have been rejected by the Court of Auditors for the last 13 years. I say that fearing that I may aggravate the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford, who became very worked up about the allegations, saying that this was nothing to do with the Commission. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the European Scrutiny Committee report's summary of the statement of assurance produced by the Court of Auditors. It gave as an example of a reservation"““the incidence of omissions and double or wrong postings””" in the Directorate-General for Education and Culture. It also referred to"““structural measures, internal policies and external action””" and said that"““payments are still materially affected by errors.””" It expressed the view that the Commission and member states needed to make much greater efforts"““to implement adequate supervisory and control systems””." That applies not just to member states, but to the Commission.