European Council

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Commission initially came up with a proposal that was over a trillion euros. One problem has been the need to argue against a proposal that is clearly wrong and wrong-headed and bring it back to some sort of sanity before it becomes possible to argue about getting a proper outcome for the budget. It is not often that we hear politicians say this, but what is lacking in some cases is a Treasury approach of going through these budgets rather than having people like the permanent staff all sitting around in the Commission and in the Council protecting their own budgets rather than looking at the savings that should be made.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Did my right hon. Friend see the headline in last Friday’s Der Spiegel online, which read “Cameron leads revolt of the net contributors”? Of particular interest was the second online comment, which read “Wir sind heute alle Engländer! Danke Herr Cameron”—today we are all British; thank you, Mr Cameron. I do not think that we are at all isolated in Europe.

[The Prime Minister]

It is impressive to see Conservative MPs speaking German in the House of Commons. I am impressed by my hon. Friend and I take what he said as a compliment.