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Future EU Finances and Own Resources

With all due respect, the hon. Gentleman is very good at soundbites, but the important thing to recognise is that, by our active engagement inside the EU, we are not putting all our eggs in one basket. Yes, we can be effective Europeans and help to develop that economy to our own advantage, but that does not stop us trading with the rest of the world. It is not an either/or situation. Let us do both. Let us recognise that we are an international nation. What concerns me about Opposition Members is that, all too often, what they are saying, when we scrape away all the economic veneer is basically a very crude form of xenophobia. [Hon. Members: ““Oh, come on.] Yes, it is. When weget down to basics, what they are really saying isthat they do not like Europeans. The economic arguments objectively speaking are for Britain’s positive engagement in the EU, and for an EU that embraces the free market and makes ever-deeper the single European market. We should be arguing for its completion, not for some kind of semi-detachment or even withdrawal, as some hon. Members would like. That is the real agenda that we must get to grips with in the future. The second point that I should like to make in my brief contribution is that I believe that the Government negotiated a good deal for Britain back in December last year. Undoubtedly, some hon. Members who represent certain regions are not particularly happy with the budgetary settlement as negotiated, but let me say quite honestly, as a representative of Caerphilly in south Wales, that we were absolutely delighted that the Government negotiated an effective continuation of objective 1 status for cohesion funding, so that some £1.2 billion will come into our region over the next financial perspective. The first tranche of that money has been put to very good use in tackling economic inactivity and developing economic infrastructure, training and so on, and there is no doubt in my mind that the good situation in south Wales, where more people are in work than ever before in history, will continue and we will be pleased—indeed, we will be singing in the valleys—when the new strand of funding comes through.