§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the European Community Commission reached its figure showing that the United Kingdom contribution to the European Community budget was less than Her Majesty's Government had claimed.
§ Mr. Ian StewartThe Commission suggested changing the definition of Community expenditure used for calculating budgetary burdens so as to exclude part of administrative expenditure and the part of CAP guarantee expenditure which corresponds to food aid restitutions and sugar imports from ACP countries and India. It also proposed that the remainder of CAP guarantee expenditure should be attributed to member states taking account of shares of production of CAP-supported commodities, rather than by its geographical location. The Government have made clear that they regard these proposed changes in the methodology which has been accepted for the past four years as unsound, unhelpful and unacceptable.