‘BREXIT LIABILITIES BILL DELIBERATELY INFLATED’
Hammond says he doesn’t recognise amounts suggested that Britain may owe bloc
BADEN-BADEN (Germany)
THE United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond dismissed suggestions that the European Union (EU) would refuse to start trade talks until Britain had agreed to settle its Brexit bill as a “negotiating position”, saying he didn’t recognise the amounts suggested that Britain may owe the bloc.
Hammond reiterated that Britain would honour its legal liabilities, but suggested totals being discussed by the European Commission were deliberately inflated by including contributions the UK would make while it was still a member of the EU over the next two years.
The bill to settle the UK’s liabilities is estimated as high as €60 billion (RM286.38 billion).
“When you’re going to a negotiation what you do is overstate your position, draw harder than they need to be your red lines as a starting point,” he said at the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting, here.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has questioned the legality of any exit fee and wants to discuss the divorce and a future trading relationship at the same time. But the EU is toughening its line, saying Britain’s budget payments must take priority, Bloomberg reported last week, increasing the chances of the UK walking away without a deal or even before the sides turn to the matter of a trade pact.
“Even the numbers that some people in the commission have been talking about conflate different things,” said Hammond. “Some of the numbers that have been mentioned include the contributions we’ll be making as a matter of course over the next couple of years.
Hammond suggested he might have to make spending cuts in his autumn budget to fill the gap in public finances created when he was forced to scrap his plan to raise insurance taxes for the selfemployed.
Hammond said the money pledged to education reform, social care and business tax relief would have to be found elsewhere.
Taxes covered by the Tory Party’s tax lock would not be touched, he added. Bloomberg