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Financial Management

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne), in whose words I found nothing whatever to agree with. His conclusion that his party is constructive towards Europe and somewhat concerned about the problem that we are discussing seems wholly unrealistic. We need only look at the two Liberal Members who are in their places—they have two very different opinions on Europe. [Interruption.] Well, on the Lisbon treaty. We are spending billions of pounds a year on the EU. I think that today we have agreed to contribute another three quarters of a billion pounds for this year, although that has not quite been made clear in the debate. What worries me is that if I, the Government or anybody else were investing huge sums of money in any other organisation, we would expect it to have proper, audited accounts. At least, that is what I thought until this week, when I saw the Government spending billions of pounds on banks, obviously without having exercised any due diligence. It cannot be right that the EU has not had unqualified accounts for 14 years. It would have been incredible to somebody voting in the referendum on whether to take Britain into the Common Market to think that this country would give billions of pounds to that organisation without being sure how it was being spent. We are debating not whether that money is being spent wisely and on good things, but whether it is being spent in line with the rules of this ridiculous European Union club. The Government's argument is always that they are at the heart of Europe, and that by co-operating with Europe they get their own way. Indeed, I understand that Superman led the EU in its financial recovery, which we discussed in the previous debate. If they really are at the heart of Europe, and if they really get their message across, that must mean that they support the fact that the auditors do not give clean reports. I think that that is the case, because it is politically useful to other countries if the fine rules of the European Union club are not applied. Whether we say that it is fraud or irregular payment, it is very convenient to overpay people in one's own country. I am sure that that is how some of our EU friends look at it. We in this country are much better at and much fairer in interpreting EU rules to the letter. Many of my constituents say that we are mad to do that. They ask why we do not do what our continental colleagues do and use flexibility when deciding how much money should be given out. If the Government were serious about the matter, after 12 years in power they would have sorted it out, but they are not serious about it. They could have solved the problem at a stroke by going to the European Council and saying, ““We, as a country, are not going to pay a single penny more in contributions until we get the accounts sorted out.”” I think that this debate is far more important to the British people than the inauguration of the US President.