Brexit: Financial Settlement

Lord Grocott Excerpts
Monday 13th November 2017

(6 years, 11 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I beg to disagree with my noble friend, although I recognise his immense experience in this area. All that has been proposed is to make explicit what has been implicit and what has been set out in the Florence speech and all the way through the process, ever since Article 50 was triggered.

Lord Grocott Portrait Lord Grocott (Lab)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, we are back to the question of finance. Can the Minister confirm that over the past 40 years, we have been huge net contributors to EU funds? Can he also confirm that we are currently being asked to pay large sums of money to depart the EU? I wonder if he could get someone from the Commission to come along and explain to the British people—who I think would find it difficult to understand— that the more we pay into the organisation, the more it costs to get out.

Lord Bates Portrait Lord Bates
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The noble Lord is absolutely right in pointing to the fact that there are assets of the European Union. Those are highlighted in the consolidated report and account, the difficulty with which is that it shows assets of £162 billion, but liabilities of £234 billion. In agreeing what our share of the assets is, we also have to be fair and recognise that there may be some concomitant responsibility for some of the liabilities.