Part of Internet Regulation (Material Inciting Gang Violence) – in the House of Commons at 3:49 pm on 8 November 2011.
May I make a little progress? I am conscious of the number of hon. Members, perhaps on both sides of the House, who want to take part in the debate.
In addition to the on-budget spending increases proposed by the Commission, the Commission has earmarked an extra £18 billion in off-budget spending. That is an alarming lack of transparency that brings added risks of poor oversight and control. In a further lack of transparency, the proposal fails to focus on levels of cash payments—actual expenditure that the multi-annual financial framework will allow in each heading. Instead, it opts to use commitments—planned expenditure—but frankly the cost to UK taxpayers is not how much is planned to be spent but the actual cash going out of the door. This should be the starting point for the higher control over spending, and we and our allies have made that clear to the Commission.