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European Communities (Finance) Bill

I do not want to follow on from what the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) said, but I must put him right on Iceland. What he mentioned was not done by Roy Hattersley and it did not happen in 1978, because he was not in the Foreign Office at that time. The settlement was in 1976 and the proposals that Roy Hattersley turned down were made in 1974. The hon. Gentleman would have done better to stay off Iceland altogether. Apart from that, he made a good speech. This is a nice opportunity to take part in one of the three-monthly contests between Eurosceptics and Euro-enthusiasts on which we spend so much time in this House. It is nice to welcome two new Ministers in the field as umpires or referees in the contest—my congratulations to both of them. I shall not put forward a view that accords with their policy or with official policy, because I shall not vote for this measure, and I would not want to give the impression that speeches by Labour Members will be, with one exception, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), panegyrics on Europe. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies)—my new Friend—has left the Chamber, but it was good to see him get all that accumulated bile about the Conservative party off his chest. I am sure that it did him a lot of good. It was interesting to see, but I do not think that those views will do him as much good under our new leadership as they would have done under the previous leadership until July—the bid is a bit late. The basic problem that we face with this Bill is that it adds to the costs of belonging to the European Union, which are already unacceptably high for this country. After Germany, which is much more generous and committed towards Europe, we have long been the second highest contributor. That situation has been compounded by the concessions made on the rebate by our previous Prime Minister, whose name slips my mind temporarily, earlier in the year without much consultation with Labour Members. The rebate was negotiated unwisely by Mrs. Thatcher, because it addressed some of the problems that the structures and financing of the European Union placed on this country unfairly and unequally. However, it was wrong to give up any part of that rebate, and in particular to do so without concessions in the negotiations in return. One should not just make generous impulsive offers and throw all one's cards on the table Europe is a matter of continuous negotiation, albeit a rather annoying and embittering one. In the negotiation, one must play one's cards and games in return for sacrifices. My concern is that there were no reciprocal gains and we got nothing in the negotiations, either on the treaty, which was also in play and being negotiated at the same time, or on the budget situation that has been so damaging to this country. Before those concessions, our contributions, which will increase under this Bill, were between £7 billion and £8 billion gross over the past few years.