00:00The famous claim, we send 350 million pounds a week to the EU, let's fund our NHS instead.
00:08But was that figure ever true and did that money ever make its way back into the NHS
00:13once we left the European Union?
00:15Every week, the United Kingdom sends 350 million pounds of taxpayers' money to the EU.
00:22That's the cost of a fully staffed, brand new hospital.
00:26Well, according to a letter from the UK Statistics Authority to Boris Johnson, that figure was misleading.
00:34So 10 years on, from when 52% of the UK voted to leave the European Union,
00:40was that figure true or was it just a political tool?
00:44Now, that famous 350 million pound number didn't come from nowhere.
00:49At the time, the UK's gross contribution to the EU was just under 350 million a week.
00:56It was actually around 327.
00:59But a very crucial detail is missing here.
01:02Before the UK sent any money to the European Union, it would get a rebate,
01:07and that equaled to around 75 million pounds a week.
01:10That means the amount that the UK was actually sending was more like 250 million pounds a week.
01:17It was a very exaggerated way of counting contributions to the EU
01:21that didn't count some of the money that we got back,
01:23and the money, the discount effectively, that we got from the EU as part of our terms of membership.
01:28And even that isn't the full picture.
01:30The EU also spent money investing in the UK,
01:34such as farming subsidies, research schemes, and project development.
01:38So what about that slogan on the bus?
01:41Did any of the money that we saved from leaving the EU ever make its way back into the NHS?
01:47The short answer, no.
01:49Not the way that the slogan made out.
01:51There was never a transfer of EU budget funds straight into the NHS.
01:57What we saw in practice is that because of the economic impact of leaving the EU
02:02and the lower taxes that resulted in,
02:04there was actually less money available for the health service.
02:07Government spending on the NHS has actually increased since Brexit,
02:11but not because a pot of cash became available after we left the EU.
02:16In fact, it's gone up by much more than 350 million a week, almost twice as much.
02:20But none of that money came from Brexit,
02:22because Brexit actually slightly tended to reduce the amount of money
02:26that was available to fund the NHS and all public services,
02:29contributing to the squeeze we've had on public spending for the last few years.
02:34The money to raise the NHS budget had to come from higher taxes,
02:37and particularly during COVID-19,
02:39when, of course, most of that growth in the NHS budget happened.
02:42So 10 years on from that referendum,
02:45was that claim on the side of a bus a lie, a simplification, or a marketing tool?
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