Open Europe's press summary for today links to a Briefing Note produced on Britain's contributions to the European Union, from which:
"Many people still think of the UK’s contribution to the EU as a small sum. But under the 2007-13 financial perspective the UK’s contribution, after the reduced rebate, will be £10.2 billion a year. To put the scale of this expenditure into context, this money could alternatively be used to:
- Cut council tax by nearly 50%:
- Build 40 brand new general hospitals each year
- Employ an extra 320,000 nurses each year
- Cut the main rate of corporation tax by 11p
- Cut the basic rate of income tax by 3p
- Raise the inheritance threshold from £300,000 to £2,925,000
- Raise the income tax personal allowance by £2000
- Cut petrol duty by 75%
- Pay the total bill for the London Olympics in less than one year"
In top of that £10.2billion can be added the tens of millions of pounds that this is going to cost the Exchequer.
6 comments:
Would the £10.2billion account for ALL those things, or just any one of them?
Sorry for being thick, but money seems to have lost its value these days when £billions & £trillions are bandied about daily...
md: alternatively = either, or?
Appreciate these types of figures have been used before - but they still worth repeating!
WFW - What would the figures be if if was done on the basis of Britain's gross EU contribution, which will be around £19 billion by 2015, as opposed to the net contribution of £10.2 billion.
It assumes that the money we get back is spent on what we want or need, I rather fancy it is neither.
A: We are presently paying £45million a day so that equates to £16.38billion per annum!
And no, what we get back has to be spent on EU designated projects!
I don't care about the amount of money. It's the idea of actually paying for our democracy to be dismantled - that's what gets me.
T: Well I for one care about both!
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