Budget Statement

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome noble Lords who have made their maiden speech. Given the shortness of the time, I have chosen to focus on one very narrow point, in fact a single line at the back of the Budget Red Book in Table C.6, which shows the EU financial settlement. It is a single line on that topic. In addition to showing the £11 billion paid in 2019-20, the outgoing sums estimated for the ensuing six years add a further £37.9 billion, much of it front-loaded to the next three years. These are net figures and do not include any gratuitous payments we might be making for voluntary participation in EU programmes. These are huge sums and should not be brushed away. They make us the world’s largest donor to the EU and make the EU the world’s largest recipient of what is, in effect, foreign aid.

To provide some context, the cut in the overseas aid budget, of which certain noble Lords understandably complain, is dwarfed by these sums, which were hastily conceded in negotiation by a former Government in the hope, now disappointed, of earning the EU’s good will and securing a generous trade deal. The temporary cut in overseas aid is worth £4 billion a year. It could be carried for nearly 10 years by this sum being paid to the EU. Of course, some noble Lords will argue that these enormous payments to the EU are somehow owed by us because they are set in a treaty, but there is talk of renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement in respect of the unworkable, economically damaging and societally disruptive Northern Ireland protocol. If that extended to a renegotiation of these payments, I can assure the Minister that many in this country would rejoice, as would many desperately poor countries overseas which it might be considered had a greater moral right to such subventions.