Multiannual Financial Framework

Debate between Brooks Newmark and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). I feel rather uncomfortable with what I am about to say, because I agree with pretty much everything that has been said, particularly by Government Members. Of course we all want a real cut—I am sure the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Financial Secretary do. The nub of the debate, however, is what my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) said. It is about how the Prime Minister negotiates, and negotiation is about achieving realistic objectives.

I think that the multiannual financial framework, or EU budget to use a simpler term, is insane. For the European Union to ask for a 10% real-terms increase above inflation is insulting to our constituents and to the people of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland, who are being told to pull in their belts. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said—I think I am getting this right—that people are being asked to make painful cuts in their household budgets. Each and every one of us has constituents who are being told to pull in their belts, and we all agree with that.

[Mark Pritchard]

I am flattered that my hon. Friend has quoted me. One way in which the Prime Minister’s hand can be strengthened is by having a united Parliament rather than a disunited Parliament when he goes to Brussels to negotiate on my birthday, 22 November.

[Mr Newmark]

I hasten to add that it is my wife’s birthday as well.

Let us discuss and decide today what message the Prime Minister should be given. Clearly he will read Hansard, and he will know the message that the Whips give him and so on, but do we want to bind his hands when he goes into the negotiations? He has already discussed a real-terms freeze with the Germans, French and Dutch, who are buying into the fact that this is a reasonable prospect. Do we want to push him over the edge and ask for something that we know he can never realistically achieve?