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Financial Management

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. I do not know whether he intends to make further remarks in the debate, but he makes an important point. If I may sing his praises, I understand that, when he served on the Convention, he was almost alone in arguing that any reform of the European constitutional documents should focus on the subject of our debate. Too easily, member states and the European institutions focused on closer integration and building up the institutions rather than addressing the real concerns about what the European Union currently does. I have no doubt that one of the biggest concerns of people in this country is the EU's failure to spend money wisely, and without irregularities and fraud. Future reform and attempts to change the structures and so on must focus on bread and butter issues and address the effective working of what we have, rather than effecting some utopian—or dystopian, depending on one's point of view—vision for the European Union. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point. Serious reform is necessary, it has not happened yet and there is no sign from the Government that it will happen. It is time that the matter was taken seriously.