EU: UK Contribution

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, by looking at the net contribution to the EU, the noble Lord is concentrating on only one dimension of our relationship with the Union. He is ignoring the very substantial economic benefits that we enjoy through increased internal trade via the single market, increased external trade via, for example, the recently concluded EU-Canada trade agreement, and increased investment in the UK by companies such as Nissan. He is also ignoring the non-economic benefits of membership in the fields of the environment, justice and external affairs.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

Will the Minister take urgent steps to gain control of expenditure in the European budget? That can best be done by introducing a system of zero-based budgeting, such as my noble friend Lord Kinnock sought to introduce when he was a Commissioner. The Government have always said yes to this in principle but done nothing in practice.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the first thing that we sought to do on the European budget was to ensure that it was not increasing in real terms. As the noble Lord knows, the agreement made by the Prime Minister at the European Council in February will result in €80 billion less expenditure over the next budgetary period than the Commission proposed. The first step in getting the budget dealt with appropriately was to cap it.