EU: Budget

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the analysis is carried out periodically by the Treasury. Reviews of the independent analysis of the benefits of our membership are available on the Treasury website. Europe accounts for 40 to 50 per cent of our exports. It is critical that we play a constructive part in Europe and that we work on factors such as those referred to by my noble friend Lord Newby to make sure that the market works better and that the UK takes full advantage of it.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, this is inevitably an extremely difficult issue at a time of stringency, but does the Minister agree that the rise in our contribution agreed in the 2005 budget deal was intended principally to meet this country’s commitment to enlargement and the increase in the structural funds that went with it? Does he also agree that, if we had not made that agreement, Poland and other new member states with living standards of a third or 40 per cent of ours would have ended up contributing to the British rebate? As for the unfairness in our contributions, does he accept that at the end of this financial period the UK net contribution will be on a par with that of France and Italy—member states of similar size and wealth?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I do not begin to accept any of that analysis. In 2005, the Prime Minister, evidently without consulting his Chancellor, gave away in the rebate a total of €10.5 billion over the current financial perspective period. What the UK got in return is a complete mystery to me. We were promised some leverage in fundamental reform of the common agricultural policy and we got nothing. This Government will not see a repeat of that.