EU: UK Net Contributions

Debate between Lord Vinson and Lord Sassoon

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vinson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the rise in the UK’s net annual contributions to the EU budget to over £10 billion per annum (as set out in the Pink Book 2012) relates to public sector cuts in other areas.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, the UK’s net contributions to the European Union have indeed increased over recent years. This is mainly the result of unacceptable increases in the annual EU budget and to changes to the calculation of the UK abatement, agreed by the previous Administration. This Government’s top priority is budgetary restraint, thereby ensuring that the EU budget contributes to domestic fiscal consolidation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Vinson]

I thank the Minister for his considered reply. Does he appreciate that while we practise austerity here in the UK, our net contribution to the EU has doubled since 2006 to over £10 billion a year? The UK has to borrow every penny of it from others, thus increasing our national indebtedness. As our Government were outvoted in their attempt to reduce the 2013 budget, will the Minister strive to get a better deal in the forthcoming negotiations, not least by withholding our £5 billion a year contribution to the structural funds? If invested here in our infrastructure, it would help to create over 250,000 badly-needed jobs.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, as the House is aware, we are coming up to the negotiations of the multi-year financial perspective. That agreement requires unanimity of member states. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made it clear in a statement, jointly with other European colleagues, that the maximum acceptable expenditure increase through that period is a real freeze in payments. That continues to be the Government’s position. As for structural funds, we cannot just opt out of any particular area of EU expenditure, although I agree that in the area of structural and cohesion funds, it is absurd that so much money is recycled from wealthy member states back into other wealthy regions of Europe. That is one of the many issues that need to be addressed.

Economy: Government Policies

Debate between Lord Vinson and Lord Sassoon

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, what my right honourable friend the Chancellor said we would do is to stick precisely to the spending plans that he set out in the March Budget and the subsequent spending review. That is what we will do, and that is what will keep our interest rates low.

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, as part of their measures to see what can help this poor old country out of its troubles, would the Government look at our huge imbalance of trade—currently running at about £30 billion a year plus? I am not suggesting for one moment that all those jobs could be done in this country, but it is the equivalent of about 1 million jobs that we are shipping overseas. There are some areas of our economy that could be done here. For instance, why do we need to import so much cement, which we can make in this country just as well as importing it from other countries? Could we not look at a sensible policy of import substitution to try to create jobs in this country that are being created unnecessarily in other countries, when we could do the jobs perfectly well ourselves?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, our exporters are leading the growth in this country and indeed, although it is early days, there are some signs from the figures over the past 18 months that at last, after a decade of a declining share of world trade, the UK’s share is increasing. It is a modest increase and it is early days but our exporters are performing very strongly.

EU: Budget

Debate between Lord Vinson and Lord Sassoon

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vinson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of their programme of public sector savings, whether they will approve proposals to increase over the next three years the United Kingdom’s current net contribution of £8 billion to the European Union budget.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, the UK cannot act unilaterally and is required to make its contributions to the EU budget under obligations imposed by the treaties. However, the Government are very concerned about the UK’s growing net contributions and are working hard to reduce them within the constraints of the 2007-13 financial perspective agreed in December 2005. According to the latest forecast, the UK’s net contributions will rise from £4.7 billion in 2009-10 to £8.9 billion in 2014-15.

[Lord Vinson]

I thank my noble friend for his carefully considered reply which is, I appreciate, configured by the limitations to his powers. However, does it really make sense to continue to pour billions of pounds into the economies of other EU countries, to bring fantastic infrastructure improvements to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, while here at home our infrastructure is in decay? Could we at least contemplate at some stage diverting those funds into our economy, which at this stage would be a classical contracyclical investment, not only bringing great strength to our economy and improving our infrastructure but creating, allowing for the multiplier effect, at least 250,000 new jobs just when they are needed? Surely we should put the interests of our unemployed first.

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I completely agree with the need to invest in infrastructure in this country, which is why we launched the first ever national infrastructure plan last autumn, at the beginning of our suite of pro-growth policies. Approximately £40 billion to £50 billion will be invested in the UK's infrastructure each year over the next five years. As to the European budget, it is quite right that we should make our contribution; but it is completely wrong that the previous Government gave away a significant part of the UK's rebate. The European Commission's figures show that in this year alone, the amount of rebate given away by the previous Government in 2005 will cost us £1.98 billion. As the result of the action that my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor took in reducing by half the increase this year, we clawed back £350 million at the December decision. That is the scale of the challenge we face.