European Union (Finance) Bill

The right hon. Gentleman refers to my dead bat, but I thought I had played a flourishing cover drive. The Prime Minister has set out objectives for a renegotiation, which will then be taken to the British people, who will decide our future as members of the European Union. We believe we should do a wide range of things to ensure that Europe works better for its members. We have consistently argued the case for fiscal discipline and we are not alone in making that case. Indeed, the Bill itself demonstrates that there is strong support for a fiscal disciplinarian approach within the European Union—the fact that we were able to negotiate a reduction in the multi-annual financial framework was a considerable achievement. In those negotiations, we had the support of member states such as Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and others.