#VoteLeave: Flawed 'Vote Leave' figures suggest NHS will benefit from Brexit

The starting pistol has been fired and the UK's EU referendum has officially started. Vote Leave are first off the starting blocks with a claim that by leaving the EU an additional £350 million per week not paid to the EU could be used to fund that great British institution, the NHS.

If anything, leaving the EU will reduce employment, growth and inward investment, reducing overall funding for public services. It is a little rich for Vote Leave to accuse the In Campaign of scaremongering, when their own information is so blatantly misleading.

Firstly, let’s look at the Vote Leave figure of £350 million per week, this is the figure they say the UK gives to the EU every week, setting aside the wide-range of benefits EU membership brings to the UK, this figure is still well off the mark.  So, what do we put into the pot? Now – unless my calculator is letting me down – Vote Leave’s figures are based on the UK paying £18.2 billion into the EU budget.

So let’s just fact-check that. We don’t pay in £18bn, we pay £13bn – but let’s assume the worst, let’s assume that the UK’s rebate is removed and we end up paying £18bn. If we assume that the amount the UK receives from the EU budget would remain at £4bn (though it would almost certainly be more) this brings us to a figure of £14bn. This takes us to £269m per week – still, that looks like an awful lot of money – it is £173m if you include the UK’s rebate. Still, even this seems like a lot. Or is it?

According to Her Majesty’s Treasury, the budget for 2016 is as follows:

The UK will spend £145bn on health for the year ahead. So the higher figure of £14bn would be approximately 10% of additional funds for the NHS. Realistically, the figure is much more likely to be £9bn, this would be around 6%. Still, 6% is 6%. But Vote Leave will need to convince the British public if this figure is to be credible.

Firstly, can they persuade the public that the additional funds won’t be wiped out by higher unemployment and reduced economic growth? Secondly, does the public believe that the current membership fee won’t be replaced by some sort of an association fee for access to the single market (remember the UK’s largest export market is the EU, at well over 50%)? And finally, is it credible that resources will be ring-fenced for the NHS?

Of course, for Vote Leave the anticipated economic decline will be a temporary aberration and plucky little Britain will bounce back to economic growth. As yet we haven’t seen a convincing alternative to the EU and the Brexiteers are reluctant to tell us what life will be like outside the EU, one day the UK will be Singapore, the next Switzerland. Frankly, neither option is either practical or desirable.

The public needs honest arguments and a credible Plan 'B'.

Share this article: