£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

5^th December 2003

Vol 9 No 4

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www.eutruth.org.uk

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www.thewestminsternews.co.uk

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www.speakout.co.uk

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Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU

www.telegraph.co.uk.blogs

 

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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.

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ONLY

PRO-PORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

WILL BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE

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Home Rule for Scotland

WHY NOT

HOME RULE for ENGLAND

 

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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?