§ Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the EEC Commission has not made any provision in its 1985 budget for a rebate to the United Kingdom; and what estimate he has made of the net contribution which the United Kingdom will make in that year if no rebate is secured.
§ Mr. Ian StewartThe Commission has not included in the preliminary draft budget provision for refund measures in the United Kingdom of the kind carried out in previous years since they assume that the method of payment of our 1984 refunds (payable in 1985) will be different from that previously adopted. No final agreement has yet been reached on how these refunds should be paid (or indeed on the amount of money involved). The Commission assumes the refunds will be paid in a way which
will not affect the level of Community expenditure".129W It has indicated that, insofar as the refunds will be paid by modulation of VAT, it will present the appropriate proposals for the rectification of the revenue provision of the budget once the necessary legal base for such modulation has been adopted.The last public expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9143) gives the latest estimates of the United Kingdom's net contribution to the 1985 budget.