EU: Budgets

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I reiterate that we take the situation enormously seriously. It is deeply unsatisfactory, but progress has been made. In their latest report, the auditors have been able to certify a greater percentage of EU expenditure as satisfactory than before. There are significant complications with anything that goes to changes in the treaty arrangements in this area, but the UK is leading by example by, for instance, producing this consolidated statement, which a number of other member states are now producing and which is welcomed by the Commission. We are adopting every route to try to get improvement. We are by no means complacent, nor should the European authorities be.

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, this is a good report. Does the Minister agree that, in relation to all the administrative expenditure of all the EU institutions, the court concludes without qualification that transactions were free from material error and that the supervisory and control systems complied with the financial regulation? Does he also agree that, in relation to other policies, the court rightly points out that there are some accounting errors and, in agriculture for example, some incorrect claims from member states, which the Commission will no doubt seek to correct and recover, but that this is not a finding of fraud?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I can certainly confirm what the noble Lord says. This does not necessarily excuse anything. If around 50 per cent of expenditure nevertheless does not meet the standards, whether through laxities in accounting or administration of the expenditure, it excuses nothing. Indeed, the level of fraud itself, which has been much discussed, is nevertheless at a very low level. According to the work of the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, the level of fraud has decreased from 0.2 per cent of expenditure in 2007 to 0.07 per cent in 2008.