Stop the Cheques - Democracy Movement campaign



Where am I? home > stop the cheques mini-site > Pre-Budget Report: response
Brown's Pre-Budget Report: what if we stopped the EU cheques? 8th December 2006 Gordon Brown this week published his pre-budget report. To mark the occasion we've looked at eight specific spending pledges he made in his speech in the context of the £115 million a week (net) Tony Blair agreed to pay the EU from next year. The result cuts through the rhetoric and lays bare the real importance Gordon Brown attaches to 'investment' in these vital areas, given many of his pledges are tiny proportions of the amounts he appears willing to sanction paying to the EU. Yet the EU's auditors haven't, for 12 years running, been able to explain how the majority of money it is given has been spent. It shows what could be achieved if so much public money wasn't being handed to the EU, and lost through EU waste and fraud. 1. "universities will have access to £60 million a year directed to applied research with commercial potential" (but it's only 4 days worth of cash allocated to the EU in 2007) 2. "with a pooled budget of over £1 billion a year ... President of the Academy of Medical Sciences Professor John Bell will lead this new drive to identify for Britain the most useful and fruitful areas for potential medical breakthroughs" (NHS research for a year = the same as the EU gets in just 9 weeks) 3. "to raise the standards of enforcement I am announcing a 50 per cent increase to £9 million in the budget to monitor and police the Minimum Wage" (= just 14 hours worth of cash earmarked for the EU next year) 4. "we are announcing a new £30 million fund to encourage local authorities and the third sector to work together to expand community ownership of community assets" ( = 2 days of EU payments) 5. "our new institute to investigate new environmental technologies will start with a budget of £550 million" (green technologies only worth 5 weeks of cash for the EU. What happened to Stern?) 6. "to fund operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and other international obligations the Secretary of Defence has been allocated an additional £600 million" (support for troops = the same support Brown will hand the EU in just 6 weeks of 2007 payments) 7. "I can also announce an additional £84 million directed to intelligence and counter terrorism" (counter-terrorism = only 6 days worth of the cash Brown thinks the EU should have) 8. "Our budget for security ...will now be for 2008, over £2 billion" (security budget = 18 weeks of EU payments) Alternatively, by keeping the whole £6 billion net due to be handed to the EU next year, Mr Brown could have increased his planned 2007 investment in education buildings and facilities of £8.3 billion, or his £8 billion investment in housing, by an impressive 72% or 75% respectively. Or increased his planned investment in our transport system of £9.6 billion by 63%, showing a real committment to modernise our over-stretched road and rail networks, rather than to an outdated and mismanaged political project like the EU. Gordon Brown and MPs need to show where their priorities really lie by rejecting Tony Blair's EU budget deal when it comes to the vote in Parliament, expected in the next few months. Facilitating trade & co-operation in Europe simply does not need the EU's massive central budget, and outdated political integration agenda. Today's EU is draining Europe's resources and depriving funds from improving education, security and the environment - issues which directly affect the quality of life of millions of people. READ MORE: Brown's pre-budget report speech in full more >> Stop the Cheques campaign mini-site more >> Blair's EU budget myths exposed more >> What MPs are saying and why they're wrong more >> Time for change. See our Vision Europe mini-site more >>

		All Rights Reserved. © Democracy Movement 2006