---

European Communities (Finance) Bill

I do not want to fall into the same trap as the Chief Secretary and extend my remarks beyond an hour, so I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. The Chief Secretary said that giving away the rebate was the right thing to do. It was all so different back in 1999, when the then Prime Minister said that the rebate was non-negotiable. He maintained that position as late as June 2005, when he reiterated it to the House of Commons in ringing tones:"““The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away. Period.””—[Official Report, 8 June 2005; Vol. 434, c. 1234.]" His then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, took the same view. When asked in an interview whether the rebate was non-negotiable, he replied simply, ““Yes””. I remember the then Prime Minister's statement in the Chamber—I was sitting at the end of the Opposition Front Bench—and thinking that the commitment he had made was so clear and unequivocal that even he could not possibly wriggle out of it. I should, of course, have known better. Within two weeks, we had a West-style 180o clarification of those words, when he said that the rebate was"““an anomaly that has to go””." Perhaps we should all have realised that he had been trying to say that in the first place. There was a further ““clarification”” on 29 June, when, attempting to defend his volte face, he said:"““Of course, if we get rid of the common agricultural policy and we change the reason why the rebate is there, the case for the rebate changes.””—[Official Report, 29 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 1293.]" That is not exactly ““the rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it””, but it is a perfectly respectable negotiating position and one that we made it clear we could support. Radical reform of the CAP in exchange for a corresponding reduction in the British rebate would provide a satisfactory outcome for the UK taxpayer and at the same time move the EU from the disastrous agricultural protectionism that damages consumers and developing economies alike, and which the Prime Minister described as a prerequisite for making poverty history.