European Union (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He makes a further point in support of my own, as the European Union's skewed aid policy is disguised within the subdivision of budgets. It is nevertheless money being spent, and it is counted as European Union aid. It may be divided up into different budgets, but as far as taxpayers and people interested in aid in this country are concerned, a very large sum of EU aid is being spent in countries that are relatively less poor, and a much greater amount is being spent in countries such as Serbia, Morocco and Lebanon. The European Union has political and security concerns about those countries, but they are not among the poorest nations in the world. The Department for International Development has set a target for 90 per cent. of its bilateral aid to go to the poorest countries—but the same imperative does not seem to govern European Union aid. Will the Minister for Europe give his estimate of how much of what the Government regard to be aid from EU institutions goes to low-income countries? The expert analysis given by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) in the earlier debate on the motion about the Lisbon treaty was hardly comforting for the Government on that point. My hon. Friend spoke from his own particular perspective, but he said that he did not regard the treaty as a great step forward. He said that we were talking about a total non-debate that added to the democratic deficit. We have often heard it said that the European Union has comparative advantages because of its size and other factors, but the evidence of the lack of poverty focus, ineffective bureaucracy, lack of transparency, slow delivery and possible fraud seems to suggest that it does not perform as well as others in the field, such as nation states. To all those problems may now be added that caused by the role played by the European Union's reinforced common foreign and security policy. The issues that my hon. Friend raised were important. The situation is dominated by long-standing problems that have riddled the European Union's whole aid history. We need to be extremely careful that we do not make an unsatisfactory situation worse by handing over more influence and authority to the centralised European Union foreign policy institutions that the treaty introduces; my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh was right to mention those issues. I do not draw the reassurance that I would like from the Government's position on the issue, although I heard what the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Harrow, West said.