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European Union Bill

My hon. Friend pre-empts me, because I am about to come on to the question of cost-benefit analysis. I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Witham that the EU has to provide much better value for money. The Government are clear that the EU needs to change and can do things a lot better than it does at present. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has argued in the House and elsewhere that the EU cannot be immune to the budgetary realities that every member state Government in the EU and every family in the EU has to face. That is why it was the Prime Minister and this country that led the process to ensure that the 2011 EU budget did not grow in line with the unacceptable demands of the Commission and the European Parliament, and why at the end of last year the Prime Minister secured the important principle that over the next financial perspective the EU budget should reflect the consolidation efforts being made by Governments right across the EU.