Business of the House

John Cryer Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s concern. Any level of fraud in the EU budget is wholly unacceptable. We recognise that major improvements need to be made to financial arrangements within the EU. We continue to support the work of the European Court of Auditors and to highlight the importance of independent scrutiny of the EU’s accounts.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I realise that there is an Opposition day debate next week on the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, but does the Leader of the House not think that it should be held in Government time? Does he not think it extraordinary that such a far-reaching change has not even been the subject of a ministerial statement?

[Sir George Young]

I do not accept the proposition that the debate should be held in Government time. The whole point of having Opposition days is that the Opposition can choose a subject for debate about which they have an issue with what the Government are doing. That is what they have done. The Government will respond to the debate on Wednesday, explaining why we believe that the EMA had a lot of dead-weight associated with it and was not well targeted, and that the regime that we plan to introduce in the autumn will make better use of the funds available.