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Financial Management

I certainly agree that links with DFID are very important, and of course fraud is simply unacceptable, wherever it takes place. The hon. Gentleman referred to the budget for Africa. The EU's international budget has been the subject of substantial discussion, and the European Court of Auditors looks at it just as it looks at the other elements of EU expenditure. The United Kingdom's objective is to ensure that we continue to make progress on ensuring that the Commission is spending money in the right areas, spending it efficiently and effectively, and cutting down on error. Also, as I said earlier, we must ensure that the individual member states that co-manage much of the European funding spend that money in the right directions, take full responsibility and cut down on error. More fundamentally, we need to continue to work tirelessly to refocus spending—a point made earlier by the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink)—to meet the challenges of the 21st century, through the review of the budget process that is now under way. In our view, a budget that devotes such a high proportion of spending to the common agricultural policy clearly remains in need of far-reaching reform, and we will continue to make those points very strongly. Before I finish, I want to address the point about the depreciation of sterling that a number of hon. Members raised during the previous debate.