Helen Liddell: accuses Tories of "obscuring" facts

Liddell Battles to Cut EU Contribution

She refused calls on Wednesday to vote against the EU Draft Budget at a key meeting of finance ministers in Brussels on Thursday after a barrage of complaints from Conservative MPs that Britain was facing a "colossal" one-third rise in its contribution to the European Union budget next year.

Ms Liddell said that in fact the increase in the UK contribution was nowhere near the £2 billion claimed.

The real figure was closer to 2% and misleading figures provided to MPs needed "a health warning", she told a Commons committee.

She also hinted that she hoped Labour's better relations with Europe may result in her whittling that figure down further at Friday's Budget Council.

Conservative MPs, led by the Euro-sceptic Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Heathcoat-Amory, said figures that had been provided suggested that Britain was being asked to contribute 32% more money than last year.

He was "outraged" that the Opposition had been given insufficient time to consider crucial documents before the meeting of a Commons EU scrutiny committee.

However Mrs Liddell told him that his figure was mistaken and failed to take account of exchange rate movements between Sterling and the ecu and technicalities to do with Britain's budget abatement and expected refunds.

"The underlying rate of increase in the Sterling value of the UK's contribution is nowhere near the 32% you are claiming," she told Conservatives.

"Based on the underlying Sterling estimates for both 1997 and 1998, the indicated increase is about 2% - much as would be expected."

Mr Heathcoat-Amory told Mrs Liddell that he understood that Britain's contribution was to rise from £6.3 billion in 1997 to £8.3 billion in 1998. "I think we are entitled to assume from that that there has been an increase of 32% in our gross contribution," he said. "For all the smoke and mirrors which are to be presented to us you cannot get away from that fact.

While Mrs Liddell admitted that "at face value it is possible to assume that there has been an alarming increase", she said Mr Heathcoat-Amory was trying to "obscure" the facts and that his point was "totally spurious".

She told the former Paymaster General: "Although I am not happy with the increase we are here talking about today, in Sterling terms I am actually able to bring a lower increase than you were last year."

Mrs Liddell said she wanted "to ensure that tomorrow I might even be able to come back with a figure which is quite a bit less than the figure we are suggesting".