Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking in the House of Common in response to a statement on the EU Council by David Cameron, said:

I thank the Prime Minster for his Statement.

Mr Speaker, let me start by echoing the words of the Prime Minister about the contribution of our armed forces in Afghanistan. All of my thoughts are with those who have served our country and the families of those who have lost their lives.

And our commitment to Afghanistan will continue beyond the handover of Camp Bastian.

We must continue to support the Afghan Government through both political and humanitarian aid as well as our training mission.

Every one of our troops who served in Afghanistan can take pride in both their mission and what they achieved and the whole country is proud of them.

I also echo the Prime Minister’s words about Ukraine and support for their Government.

On climate change I welcome the climate and energy package, paving the way for the global UN Summit in Paris next year.

Can I ask the Prime Minister what action he will be taking in the coming months to encourage other countries, particularly China and the US, to bring forward ambitious targets and policies in advance of the Conference?

Turning to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

The whole world has been horrified by the devastating scenes and our hearts go out to the communities that are confronting this threat on a daily basis.

I welcome the UK’s efforts to help affected countries. We are proud of the work of our armed forces, our health professionals and our aid community.

Can I ask the Prime Minister what effort was made at the Summit to encourage other countries to send health workers and personnel to the affected region?

Let me turn to the issue of the EU budget change.

The Commission’s handling of this matter has been cack-handed and unacceptable and it has caused consternation in a number of other states.

The urgent priority now is for the Government to pursue all diplomatic means to get the best deal for Britain.

But the Prime Minister must also answer whether the Government has done due diligence in its handling of this.

The Prime Minister says he was made aware of this matter only on the 23rd October.

And the Chancellor said he had “no warning”.

But that is simply not the case.

These changes to the budget arise from changes to estimates of gross national income or GNI.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Office of National Statistics agreed to and has been part of these substantial and planned changes across Europe for at least two years, since 2012?

Can he confirm that the ONS stated publically in May 2014 that these changes would impact on our budget contribution? It said in its press release and I quote

“GNI…is used in the calculation of a Member State’s contribution to the EU budget.”

And the Treasury were clearly aware of this too. I have here a letter that the then economic Secretary to the Treasury, the Right Hon Member for Loughborough wrote to the Parliamentary Committee on Europe not 7 days ago but 7 months ago on 11 March 2014.

She said changes were going to take place to GNI in time for 2014 and wrote about the “high priority” the Government were giving to addressing them.

So these changes were planned for a number of years, the ONS publically declared that they would impact our budget contribution and Ministers knew about them and claimed they were a high priority.

So is he really still going to maintain that there was “no warning” and that Treasury Ministers knew nothing about these changes?

Surely the Treasury must have made its own estimates of the impact on the EU budget that would follow?

And as a matter of basic competence if not, why not?

The reason this matters is that, he could have done much earlier what he did at the last minute on Friday and called for a meeting of finance ministers and entered negotiations about this demand.

And maybe he can now tell us what is his plan to sort this mess out?

Isn’t the truth that this is a familiar pattern of events under this Prime Minister.

Months and months when he doesn’t do the work, followed by last minute pyrotechnics when it all goes wrong.

No-one is going to be fooled by it.

He spends all of his time negotiating with his Party about Europe when what he should be doing, is the basic work of getting a better deal for Britain in Europe.

Once again he shows that for all his bluster he has been asleep at the wheel and it is the British people who are paying the price.