§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the Commission proposal on own resources at ECOFIN on 12 July. [92830]
§ Ms HewittThe Berlin European Council agreed that a new Own Resources Decision should be introduced under which the UK abatement will remain; the ceiling on EU own resources is kept at 1.27 per cent. of EU GNP; and contributions related to VAT and "traditional" own resources are reduced in favour of fairer payments linked to member states' GNPs. At ECOFIN on 12 July the Commission made a short presentation of their draft of that Decision. I shall shortly be submitting an Explanatory Memorandum on it to the Scrutiny Committee.