I am grateful to my hon. Friend. New clauses 1, 2 and 3 and amendment 1, all tabled by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), would require the Treasury to undertake a series of actions prior to the Act coming into force. New clause 1 would require the Treasury to inform both Houses that it has formally requested a review by the European Commission into alternative ways of running the EU budget and a comparative analysis of commitments and payments as the basis for appropriations for the budget. New clause 2 would require the Treasury to request a fundamental review by the Council of Ministers of EU budget priorities, waste and inefficiency. New clause 3 asks for the Chancellor to issue an invitation to the Commission to provide further details of the draft budget to scrutiny Committees. Amendment 1 would delete subsection (3) of clause 2, which would mean that the Act would not come into force until 14 days after the conditions specified in each new clause were met.
We recognise the concerns underlying the amendments. Nevertheless, the hon. Lady will recall that the Bill relates exclusively to the financing of the EU budget, while the amendments relate to the separate, although equally important, issue of EU budget expenditure. On that basis alone, we reject them.