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Mr. Spring: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the extraordinarily impressive taxation policies of the accession countries, including flat and very low taxes, are ultimately far more likely to generate growth and employment than anything else?

Chris Bryant: That is another ideological position.

Mr. Hopkins: Another country in the European Union has one the most successful economies and high, progressive taxation: Sweden.

Chris Bryant: Indeed. For that matter, Spain has lower taxation than the UK. However, I think that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) tried to entice me into a general election conversation about whether we should be a higher tax or a lower tax economy.

My point is that we should not be ideological about either repatriating all structural funds to individual member states or insisting that we must have structural funds so that, for example, Wales can get money. If there are structural funds, I stress to the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr that my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Caerphilly (Mr. David) and I will fight just as hard as him to ensure that some of the money comes to our communities. I am slightly sad and worried that the hon. Gentleman has intentionally designed his amendment to ensure that only members of the nationalist parties vote for it, so that he can use others' voting records as a party political tool, following the publication of his press release, which was doubtless issued earlier today.

Adam Price: I made it clear that my intention was to concentrate on what constituted a key issue for me. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not accuse me of misleading the House.

Chris Bryant: I would not like to accuse the hon. Gentleman of anything.

Mr. David: Misleading the people of Wales.

Chris Bryant: As my hon. Friend says, perhaps the hon. Gentleman's rhetoric sometimes inadvertently
 
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misleads the people of Wales. If there are to be structural funds, it is important that the European Commission hears the voices of Members of Parliament from nationalist parties, Liberal Democrat parties and Labour parties, all arguing for the money to go to, for example, Welsh communities. It is important to build rather than dismantle that consensus.

6.41 pm

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): The general election campaign appears to be up and running in Wales if nowhere else.

I support the Government motion, which takes a strongly critical tone about European financial arrangements. I support the tone, even if I would like to go further on specifics. For eight long years, I have been a member of European Standing Committee B. For eight of the past 10 years, we have received European Court of Auditors reports about the European Union budget's failure to add up or meet the Court's approval. I have made a speech on each occasion and I suspect that I have repeated myself because it is difficult after eight years to find something original to say. However, some things need repeating—I have said them in the Chamber as well as in Committees—about European finances.

For years, there has been endless talk about reform of the CAP. Ministers have returned from Europe, waving pieces of paper and saying, "I have secured reform." Yet it has not really happened. While France remains happy not to be too critical, one can be pretty sure that nothing substantial has changed. I believe that the CAP should be abolished and that agricultural policy should be returned to member states. Each member state has a different pattern of agriculture. For example, I believe that we should choose to subsidise Welsh hill farmers. Their way of life is valuable and preserves our countryside and I would therefore be happy to subsidise them. I am not so happy to give massive subsidies to the multi-millionaire grain farmers of East Anglia.

Mr. Hendrick: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the UK should withdraw unilaterally from the CAP? What impact would that have on not only the grain farmers of East Anglia but farmers generally, the many poor farm workers and those who work in agriculture throughout the country? What impact would it have on any farmers in his Luton constituency?

Mr. Hopkins: I did not suggest that we should withdraw unilaterally. I believe that we should have a domestic agriculture policy that may involve fairly heavy subsidies for some areas but not for others. It would be targeted to ensure that farm workers got proper wages and that we did not subsidise areas unnecessarily. I specifically mentioned Welsh hill farmers. However, that is a detail and my point is that each country should decide its agricultural policy internally. I ask our Ministers to propose that and argue the case in future. It will not happen this year and perhaps not next year but, in time, we must abolish the
 
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CAP. It has been a millstone round the EU's neck for a long time and we should get rid of it, start again and hand agriculture policy back to member states.

Angus Robertson: Fisheries?

Mr. Hopkins: My views on the common fisheries policy are also well known.

Minister after Minister in the Department for International Development has complained about the inefficiency and corruption in the aid budget, the fact that it is misdirected, that money goes missing and that it does not work. The Department for International Development is a model that other member states could follow. Whatever else we do in the world through our free trade policy in arms, we do a good job on aid. I therefore suggest that we should repatriate the aid budget to member states. We should not do it unilaterally, but propose it as a sensible way forward. We could then direct aid to the countries that we believed needed it—for example, those in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is clear that structural funds will not operate to our advantage in future and that we will be bigger net contributors. Given that many poorer countries have joined the EU, it is sensible and natural that the richer countries such as Britain make net contributions to them. I hope that our Government will replace what is lost in European structural funds with various types of national and regional funding, which would ensure that areas of the country do not suffer by the loss of European funding.

I hope that, when regional funding goes to parts of Britain, we might see notices with a little red rose and the words, "Donated," or given, or allocated, "by Britain'sLabour Government", instead of the little circle of yellow stars on a blue flag. I stress to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary that previous Labour Governments have promoted such a regional policy. I did some work on regional policy funding when I was at the Trades Union Congress and in the 1970s, it genuinely worked. It reduces inequalities in growth, living standards and employment between regions. We should have more of that and there should be a more substantial national budget, too. We should not simply leave everything to markets, because they do not work without redistribution.

We are considering substantial changes and it behoves all of us who take a critical standpoint to propose something that will work instead of what we have. On page 104 of the document that is before us, the Commission examines the possibility of a GNI—gross national income—based system, whereby countries would donate according to their relative prosperity. The Commission notes that

"advantages of such a system would be that it would be simple and easy to understand, and gross contributions would correspond closely to member states' relative prosperity."

That is a sensible way forward. Sadly, the Commission rejects it. We should go on pressing that case. We should get rid of some of the distorting, inefficient and corrupt systems and replace them with a system based on relative prosperity whereby we donate to a budget on which the poorer countries draw. Rich countries such as Britain would therefore be net contributors and the
 
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poorer countries that join would be net recipients. That should be accompanied by a strong internal regional policy.

I have made the case many times in the Chamber and in European Standing Committee B and I believe that it is sensible. However, we will get nowhere by tinkering at the margins and hoping that nobody notices that we are not changing anything much. We must propose a coherent, comprehensive and radical alternative for the future of Europe. I envisage our going forward on the principles that I outlined.

6.49 pm

Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, Pollok) (Lab/Co-op): It gives me great pleasure in a European debate to speak enthusiastically in favour of the Government's policy. Indeed, I think that I am probably more in favour of the Government's policy on this matter than the Government are.

I take as my starting point the Minister's comment that the EU Commission was proposing a 34 per cent. increase in expenditure. If such an increase were proposed by any local authority anywhere in the country, or by any other body or organisation, there would be an enormous scandal involving accusations of overspending. That is what should be happening in this context. The European Union's proposal to spend 34 per cent. more in the next year demonstrates that there is clearly no internal self-discipline in that organisation. In those circumstances, the Government should do as much as they can to restrict that expenditure to a reasonable level.

Others have already touched on various aspects of EU spending, and I want to make two particular points in that regard. The first relates to extravagance. The waste, extravagance and corruption of the European Union are well known to all of us. I speak as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, which has been involved in studying this matter for many years, and that case is irrefutable. My second point relates to misdirection. The case that far too much is spent on the common agricultural policy has been clearly made and is similarly irrefutable.

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