European Budgets 2014 to 2020

Part of Internet Regulation (Material Inciting Gang Violence) – in the House of Commons at 3:49 pm on 8 November 2011.

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Photo of Mark Hoban Mark Hoban The Financial Secretary to the Treasury 3:49, 8 November 2011

Let me make a bit more progress and I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a short while.

The Commission also asked us to use as our starting point for a freeze—this is perhaps where Geraint Davies has been confused by the Commission’s numbers—the level of spend planned in 2005, but we cannot ignore the fact that the global crisis has taken place since then. Every country has had to scale back its spending from pre-crisis days and the European Commission is no different.

The Commission can also do more to ensure that money is spent more wisely. We are leading the way on reforming financial management in the EU. For the first time in 17 years, we have refused to support the sign-off of the EU accounts. We are pushing for simpler, clearer rules on spending programmes that make it easier to spot fraud and error, and we have also raised our game at home to ensure that EU money spent here is spent properly and wisely.