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European Council

My Lords, my noble friend is entirely right: we cannot have cake every day. Throughout Europe, different countries in different ways are learning the lesson of increasing productivity and trying to do more for less. The Prime Minister had one thing on his mind, and was not alone in so doing. He made it clear that, with leaders having to look at cuts in all sorts of very sensitive areas in their home countries, as we have had to do in ours, it was quite wrong to see net contributions to the EU continue to rise exponentially and that we needed to come forward with a very sensible plan over the next few years. My noble friend Lady Falkner asked about our commitment to reform the CAP. This has been a long-standing commitment, and we cling very firmly to our view that the CAP needs to be reformed. Discussions on it will continue, likewise on the structural funds.