£4000
million a year – that’s our cost of EU membership
Most
of the UK’s official statistics are compiled by the ONS the Office for National
Statistics, which is an agency of HM Treasury. The ONS boss is Len Cook, a New
Zealander. The minister ultimately responsible for the output of the ONS is the
Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
Each
year, the ONS publishes “ the Pink Book; United Kingdom Balance of Payments”.
The 2003 edition, with data for the whole of 2002, was published on the ONS
website at www.statistics.gov in
mid-October 2003, a couple of months later than usual. The paper version came
out in mid-November.
The
2003 edition, which can be downloaded free from the website contains as usual,
at Chapter 9 on page 114 of the Pink Book, a “Geographical Breakdown of Current
Account”. This shows British exports
(“credits” in the jargon), imports (“debits”) and the resulting balances for
the eleven years 1992 –2002, analysed by country and by type of transaction;
goods, services, income and transfers.
Separate
lines, for “EU Institutions”, show UK payments to (debits) and receipts from
(credits) EU Institutions and the resulting balances. “EU Institutions”
comprise not just the “EU Budget”
administered by the Commission but in addition an all-too numerous mish
mash of institutions, bodies and quango’s like the Court of Justice, the
Central Bank, the Army-which-isn’t –an-Army, the European Investment Bank and
so on.
The
latest figures show that, over the ten-year –period 1993-2002 inclusive the UK
paid over to EU Institutions GROSS, cumulatively, £104 billion. (A billion is a
thousand million.) Quite a lot of money – UK taxpayer’s money. In those same
ten years the UK received back, cumulatively a lot less £64 billion. So the UK’s Net contribution over that
ten-year period was £40 billion, or an average of £4 billion per year (the 2002
Net contribution was £4.3 billion.)
That £40 billion let us remind ourselves, was taken from
UK taxpayers. Assuming an average UK population over those ten years of 59
million, that works out at £678 as the average NET contribution that every man,
women or child in the UK has paid over to “Brussels” in the last decade
Putting
it another way, the UK has paid over to Brussels, net, in every single one of
the 3,652 days (including two leap years) of the last ten years £11 million.
Or, if you prefer, £77 million per week.
How
does one get one’s mind round these staggering numbers? Well, a brand-new, fully
equipped, state- of -the -art 800-bed city-centre general hospital in the UK
costs around £250 million. If, instead of paying that cumulative net
contribution of £40 billion (i.e. £40,000 million) over to Brussels, the
government had spent it on brand-new hospitals, we would now be enjoying the
facilities of one hundred and sixty of them, having in total 128,000
beds.
Who knows, we probably wouldn’t even need to contemplate
putting A&E patients in hospital car parks in blow-up tents, as apparently
is happening now.
Of
course, you could argue that £40 billion of net contribution to Brussels over
ten years is value for money? Don’t bother to ask HM Government. They’ve been asked repeatedly. They
won’t tell you. They daren’t.
Eurofacts
5th December 2003
Vol 9 No 4
*
www.eutruth.org.uk
*
www.thewestminsternews.co.uk
*
www.speakout.co.uk
*
Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU
www.telegraph.co.uk.blogs
*
VOTE
MAY -2007
TO
LEAVE
THE
EUROPEAN
UNION
WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE
TO SET YOU
FREE
THE
UK
INDEPENDENCE PARTY
http://www.ukip.org.uk
TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE FOR THE
TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER
BUT
SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS
WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES.
*
ONLY
PRO-PORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION
WILL
BRING
DEMOCRACY
BACK
TO
THE
ENGLISH
PEOPLE
*
Home Rule for Scotland
WHY NOT
HOME RULE for
ENGLAND
*
MAY/07
[All underlined words have a separate
bulletin
THE QUESTION THAT THE VOTER MUST ANSWER
‘DO YOU WISH TO BE GOVERNED BY YOUR OWN PEOPLE, LAW AND CUSTOM OR BY
THE CORRUPT ,EXPENSIVE UNACCOUNTABLE AND ALIEN BUSYBODY BRUSSELS’
-SIMPLE IS IT NOT?