European Union (Amendment) Bill

I thought that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, was very sensible, so I am slightly mystified by some of the reactions to it. If anything, I thought that he erred on the side of euphemism. He referred to a number of ““worrying developments”” and said that he found the situation ““rather unsatisfactory””. I believe that the situation that we have been discussing is unacceptable and must be resolved as quickly as possible. As he reminded us, the Court of Auditors has not been able to sign off the EU’s accounts for 13 years. One would have thought that, by now, we would have sorted it out. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, intervened to question exactly what the amendments would do and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, interrupted the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, as he was trying to stress the importance of some of the substantial figures involved. It is quite clear to me that Amendment No. 79 gives us the opportunity to examine the membership of the Court of Auditors. Should it consist of one national of each member state? Should there be independent members? Is this the right provision? Amendment No. 80A, which we are taking in this group, enables us to examine whether the right words are used. Should they refer only to examining, "““fraud and other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Union””," or should other areas be included in the terms of reference? Finally, Amendment No. 85 gives us the opportunity to examine the reports of the Court of Auditors. I thought that all the diversion, which took about 10 to 15 minutes, was a little irrelevant. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, does not mind my saying this, as I believe that the committee of which he is a member has done a good job in raising a number of key questions, to which we still await answers. The European Commission tends to blame national Governments for why the accounts are not signed off. But the Court of Auditors says it is the Commission, so we really have to examine who is right. In the preliminary draft Budget debate, Mr Ed Balls said: "““The Commission has given an assurance in its action plan that its intention is to get a budget fully signed off by the European Court of Auditors, with a statement of assurance, by 2009””." That is next year. He continued: "““In the ECOFIN conclusions that were agreed in November, a series of steps was set out in the action plan, in relation to improving payment systems and control systems, simplifying regulations, and putting in place proper integrated internal frameworks, to ensure that we can get a grip on the errors and irregularities that … have plagued the European budget for more than a decade … We need to make progress and I have made that clear””.—[Official Report, Commons European Standing Committee, 11/7/06; col. 11.]" We all await the words of the noble Baroness with great interest. I would like to add to the questions that have, quite rightly, been raised in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, by my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville—who, having visited the Court of Auditors, probably knows more about this than anyone else—and other noble Lords. What progress has there been on implementing the action plan? How close do the Government feel that the Commission is to meeting its target of getting the Court of Auditors to sign off a budget by next year? I support the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on what further consideration the Government have given to the recommendation of, among others, the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell and Lord Radice, that there should be annual debates on audit and financial matters? In the report, it was discovered that Spain and the UK account for more than half of the quantifiable errors in structural policies in the 2006 annual report. What have we done to improve that? These are really important issues because this is one of the areas where, outside this House, our vision of Europe is always attacked—particularly by some of the press—for what has happened. I hope that we are all resolved that we must get this put right. What are the Government going to do?