Ed Balls MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, responding to the Sunday Times’ story on the EU budget, said:

“George Osborne needs to come clean about his secret deal in Brussels over the EU budget.

"British taxpayers know he failed to reduce Britain’s bill and simply got some extra time to pay it. That was already a bad outcome as Britain’s net contributions didn’t change by a single penny.

"Now it’s clear the price for that poor deal was dropping Britain’s opposition to extra EU spending of 3 billion euros.

"The Chancellor has been desperate to make this story go away, at least until after the Rochester by-election. But his attempts to keep the truth from the British people have now totally unravelled.”