European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful to the Lord President for that. As the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said, if we give way all the time—much as I would love to for the purposes of the debate and the exchanges—we just get, at excessive length, the propaganda from UKIP, of which there are two Members, with the independent Labour Member sometimes supporting them. Other colleagues genuinely wish to make progress with the Bill. I feel that a majority of Members—without our being oppressive of the minority views—is in favour of beginning to accelerate the progress of the Committee, albeit in a way that is not undemocratic and does not deprive people of the opportunity of saying a few words. The realistic appraisal is that there is a strong majority in your Lordships’ House for the treaty and therefore for passing this Bill. A lot of patience has been shown to the UKIP Members, which I feel they should acknowledge by making shorter speeches. Indeed, I am sorry for the length of my remarks in dealing with that matter. If the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, had correctly answered the question that he was asked, he would have said, ““I’ll withdraw the amendment and will support the provision in the treaty””. I believe that everyone agrees that the Court of Auditors needs substantially to increase resources. It is now dealing with 27 member states and needs, without going too far overboard and being too expensive, to be a much more powerful body in terms of personnel. The problem of having one person from each member state also needs to be solved, although the main problem relates to the detailed administration travelling down through the member states to the ground. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, was referring to examples in the United Kingdom when he mentioned the young man, which gives me the opportunity to remind colleagues that there have been cases of fraud in the UK, too, although I mean no disgrace to redound on any British Government. Indeed, the UK has often been quite high on the Court of Auditors’ list in its measurement of fraud. That is partly because of the sad reality that there were certain dodgy people in the City a few years ago who were very good at devising equally dodgy agricultural investment schemes. The combination of our strength in agricultural management as an industry—unlike in Germany, where industry is strong but agriculture has always been weak and fragmented—and the City spivs to whom I referred, although obviously without mentioning any names, was powerful and explosive in creating some interesting and ingenious schemes some 10 to 12 years ago. The reality must be that we should support the Court of Auditors in its work. Because of time, I will not refer to Amendments Nos. 80A and 85, except to say that they are part of the same picture. The European Court of Auditors has done a good job and the sovereign member states have their own responsibility to respond to the central responsibility of the Commission and the Court of Auditors to ensure that money is managed properly. Putting 27 national public finance and financial management cultures together in the increasingly enlarged European Union is a difficult task for both the Commission and the Court of Auditors. In many ways, they have done a marvellous job. As a Member of the other place, I made various visits to the Court of Auditors; one could only be struck by its efficiency and expertise in dealing with these matters.