An analysis of official HM Treasury figures for the year ended 05 Apr 2019

Graham Lear
3 min readJul 31, 2019

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As the Conservative leadership contest was still heading for its climax, HM Treasury released its latest figures for public expenditure in the tax year ending 05 Apr 2019. The data shows that the UK paid the EU more than £11.2 billion for the previous 12 months.

That’s £11.2 billion and it doesn’t even include payments to the EU for their “off-budget” funds.

These are the pro-Remain Treasury’s own figures

Buried deep within hundreds of pages of information released by HM Treasury in July are the official figures for how much the UK has paid the EU in the previous year.

Net payments to the EU for the tax year ended Apr 2019

Total gross amount £21.0 billion

Less rebate and public sector receipts of £9.8 billion

Total net contribution to the EU = £11.2 billion

And this isn’t even all of it — see below

The Treasury clearly says that “the UK’s contribution to the cost of EU aid to states outside the EU is attributed to departmental budgets.”

In simple terms, substantial extra contributions to the EU by the UK are NOT included in the figures above.

Published details of the “off-budget” EU funds of a substantial nature to which the UK has made large contributions, such as the Cohesion Fund’ and which have never been included in the Treasury’s official “EU net contributions” figures.

It is disappointing, to say the least, that the BBC has not seen fit to investigate and report on these additional payments to the EU.

So the latest total admitted by HM Treasury for the UK’s net contributions to the EU for the tax year ended Apr 2019 is £11.2 billion.

By its own admission, the pro-Remain Treasury does not include amounts paid to the EU by other government departments. I find this incredulous.

Given that Brexit has been the overriding topic in the country for over three years, readers might have hoped that the Treasury would actually present the full picture so that the public were properly informed from an official source.

As it is, I have simply presented the Treasury’s official figures above. The true figure is significantly higher as I have previously demonstrated, but readers can quote the figure of £11.2 billion with complete confidence. The true figure is higher, but Remainers can hardly argue with the pro-Remain Treasury’s own official data.

Just think what we British could do with that 21 billion.

New hospitals with doctors/nurses or new surgeries in our towns and cities

Or

Beefing up our Royal navy 21 Billion could mean 21 new top of the range frigates to protect our nation.

How about new schools training far for teachers.

Or how about our road infrastructure? or railways?

Over the last two days, I have shown how 15 EU countries benefit enormously from the EU's Cohesion Fund’ Their roads railways are far better than ours. People have commented on how great those roads are when visiting some of those countries. All of us at some point in our lives use both the roads and our railway's and almost all of us when using both see how bad ours are. How great it would be to drive on roads that are smooth silent, ride on trains that are new, stations that are a joy to be in. We could if we choose to use that 21 billion a year on our travel infrastructure.

[ Sources: HM Treasury official 2019 figures ]

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Graham Lear

What is life without a little controversy in it? Quite boring and sterile would be my answer.