| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Chris Bryant: Before my hon. Friend intervenes to ask me what figure I would put on that, I should say that I thought that all his interventions on other hon. Members to ask for precise figures were rather fatuous. The point is not the percentage of the EU budget, but the absolute figure—the amount of money. That is the figure that should fall.
Mr. Davidson: In that case, can my hon. Friend tell me the absolute figure that should be spent on the CAP?
Chris Bryant: The amount should fall considerably. As I predicted, my hon. Friend attempted to entice me to give a precise figure, but our aim should be to reduce the absolute figure in real terms and not let it just rise with inflation.
I also believe, as do all pro-Europeans, that we should be more resolute in our attempts to improve the financial transparency of the EU, to tackle fraud and to insist on financial discipline from the Commission. The idea of a 5 per cent. margin of manoeuvre, suggested by the Commission, would be wholly inappropriate, because it would set up an expectation of poor financial discipline before we even start the next seven-year period.
Notwithstanding the unity in the House on the 1 per cent. ceiling, the CAP and the need to tackle fraud, several hon. Members have been too ideological and not pragmatic enough in their approach to the issues. One instance is the question of whether aid should go always to the poorest countries. Of course it is self-evident that we should try to ensure that the international aid provided by this country or through the EU should go to the poorest countries, but it should not be done on a straight mathematical model, for various reasons. For example, we should bear in mind governance issues. We should give aid only where it will make a significant difference. That may not be in the poorest countries, because countries that have poor records of governance and refuse to improve their human rights records should not be rewarded with money that may end up in the pockets, not of the poorest people in those countries but of the oligarchies that run them. The ideological obsession with simply giving money to the poorest countries is flawed.
In some areas, we may also wish to use international aid budgets to reinforce political objectives. I raised that point earlier with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary. Our neighbourhood programme policies may entail some spending of money in other areas, most notably in the Maghreb, if we are to try to ensure our internal security within this country, and across the EU. We should also look at the policies that we wish to develop in the Balkans and the Palestinian Authority. In all those cases, the mere mathematical model that all EU aid money must go to the poorest countries is mistaken.
Mr. Hendrick:
I agree with most, if not all, of my hon. Friend's comments about the criteria for giving aid.
7 Mar 2005 : Column 1336
However, many opponents of the current system criticise it on the basis that much of the aid goes to countries that were previously part of the European colonial empire, and it is true that African, Caribbean and Pacific—ACP—countries seem to benefit quite well. What is his view of the EU's relationship with those countries?
Chris Bryant: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend in that I should like us to be far more effective in trying to ensure that the richest countries in the world, many of which are members of the European Union, contribute more in international aid and do so not only in those countries with which they have historical links, but in areas where they can be most effective, where there is good governance, where there are human rights, and where they can lever in not only significant improvements in people's quality of life in terms of trying to meet the millennium development goals, but significant improvements across a whole region. On the whole, that will be better achieved with a strong EU aid budget than with a minimalist one; otherwise, countries such as France and Belgium are most likely, in their bilateral aid agreements, to contribute to countries with which they have historical ties. If our main objective in terms of an international aid budget is to try to ensure that all the aid that flows out of the EU to other countries goes towards making the biggest difference to their poorest people, we will need a significant EU aid budget.
Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend seems to be wobbling.
Mr. Hendrick: I am not sure that I would call it wobbling. What would my hon. Friend do about our agreements with West Indian countries on trading bananas, which were traditionally traded with the EU as a result of previous relationships with the ACP countries and world trade disputes with the United States? Those islands may not be poor in relation to African countries, but the disappearance of their only industry, which may be bananas, would make them much poorer.
Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend is enticing me into a debate on trade instead of EU finances. Let me cite the example of the disaster relief work in which different countries around the EU have been involved. In the Caribbean, for instance, countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and Holland will often work only with the individual islands with which they have historical links, whereas a more concerted effort between all the different countries would probably be far more effective. I still hold to the view that although, in the main, we should try to increase the percentage of EU aid that goes to the poorest countries—I respect the work that the Government have been doing on that—it will still be necessary to consider the mathematical equations of poverty in arriving at the decision on where the money should go.
We have heard an excessive amount of ideology this afternoon, including the hyper-inflated peroration of the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr [Hon. Members: "Jealousy."] It might be envy, but it could not possibly be jealousy. The hon. Gentleman
7 Mar 2005 : Column 1337
should not be ideological about structural funds. Ultimately, I want to ensure that the economy in my constituency is resuscitated after the decades of difficulties that we have experienced. The recent report by Sheffield Hallam university is a rude awakening for those who look at the south Wales economy and see, in many areas, greater growth than there is across the rest of the UK and significant improvements in the unemployment level, which in my constituency is only marginally ahead of the UK average. That is all well and good, but the truth remains that in other areas with objective 1 status jobs have been replaced much more significantly and effectively than in south Wales. That is partly why one in five people of working age in my constituency are on incapacity benefit. I am glad that the Government are working to address that. The issue of structural funds is not ideological—the point of principle is that we must ensure that we have programmes in place to resuscitate those communities.
Mr. David: Is my hon. Friend saying that the most important thing, contrary to what the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) says, is not whether the money comes from London or from Brussels but that extra resources are coming into West Wales and the Valleys, in the most effective way possible?
Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend has said almost word for word what I had written down on the piece of paper that I am holding, and I am grateful to him for doing so. There are certainly areas where a national investment will be more effective than an international investment, simply because layers of bureaucracy might be added. A Welsh bureaucracy topped by a Treasury bureaucracy and then a Brussels bureaucracy might not be in the best interests of delivering value for money in the communities that we are talking about.
The hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr missed a trick when he was intervened on by a Liberal Democrat Member, because the Liberal Democrats were the only people, apart from his party leader, whom he did not attack in his speech. He could have had a dig in that direction, because the Liberal Democrats' involvement in the objective 1 process when they were part of the Welsh Assembly Government gave us some of the hiccups and delays in the implementation of that funding in the valleys.
Mr. Llwyd: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the substantial shortfall every year in the match funding element coming from Westminster was one of the main problems in getting things moving? That is not just an allegation by us, but a proven fact. What he says about the coalition is right, but he did not mention the important annual element.
Chris Bryant: In my experience, a large number of factors made it difficult to get individual projects up and running—for example, the lack of understanding on the ground, certainly in my own community, about how to access funding, and the Plaid Cymru-run local authority's inefficiency in bringing forward projects.
However, assigning blame is not important at this juncture. What is important is whether we should advance an ideological argument that says that we must
7 Mar 2005 : Column 1338
have structural funds across Europe so as to provide money for Wales. Another ideological argument says that we should have no European structural funds because it is better to repatriate all structural funds to individual countries. I disagree with both those ideological positions. When Spain, Portugal and Greece joined the European Union, many people in Britain argued that that would be bad for us because it would make it more difficult to access funds from Europe and the investment that was going to those other countries would enable them to start to run ahead of us economically. What actually happened was that our trade with those countries grew dramatically—in the case of Spain, by 38 per cent. in a matter of three or four years. That was to the benefit of the UK economy. Similarly, some of the structural funds that might be used in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Latvia will benefit us by increasing prosperity and opportunities for trade.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |