EU won’t get a penny until we’ve agreed a trade deal, vows May
Mrs May – due to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for talks in Brussels next Monday – was “optimistic” that the negotiations will produce a good deal for both the UK and EU.
She said: “We are working hard with the EU to ensure we can move together. But what I am clear about is that we need to move together.
“We are working hard to ensure we get the movement on to the trade talks – that I think is not just our interests, but in the interests of the rest of the EU.”
It is thought unlikely that either the EU or UK will ever put a precise figure on the financial settlement.
The bill covers an array of liabilities including funding for projects Britain signed up to, loans yet to be repaid and pensions for European Commission civil servants.
Unofficial calculations have put the gross figure at around 100 billion euros (£88billion).
But deductions for items such as the UK rebate and Britain’s share of the European Investment Bank could reduce the net sum to about half that. Payments would be made over many years as liabilities fall due, so the final total may not be known for decades.
Brexit- supporting Tories sounded the alarm in the Commons yesterday about reports on the size of the divorce bill.
Senior backbencher Jacob ReesMogg said there was “growing concern that Her Majesty’s Government seems in these negotiations to be dancing to the tune of the European Commission”.
He asked if ministers could be sure that after March 29, 2019 – the date set for exit – we would make “no payments to the European Union whatsoever in the absence of a full agreement covering trade”. And Peter Bone, another leading Eurosceptic Tory MP, said voters in his Northamptonshire constituency did not want to see more taxpayers’ cash going to Brussels.
He said: “The 60-odd per cent of the people in Wellingborough who voted to leave would want to know what we were doing with £60billion.
Trust
“They would want it spent on the NHS, social care and defence.
“They would not want it given to the European Union.
“Would the minister agree such a move would be betraying the trust of the British people?”
And former Tory minister Robert Halfon said the Government risked undermining its argument on the “public sector and the need for good housekeeping” if the impression is given that “we have wads of cash when it comes to Europe”.
He said: “This is not a divorce bill, we are leaving a club and once you leave a club you no longer have to pay subscriptions.”
But Treasury Chief Secretary Elizabeth Truss dismissed reports Mrs May was set to agree an exit fee of up to £50billion as “speculation”.
She told MPs: “Negotiations are ongoing, the discussion is ongoing and we want to secure value for money for British taxpayers.
“We are not dancing to anyone’s tune. What we care about is the future of Britain’s economy, protecting the British taxpayer from excess payments and making sure that we secure a good deal.”
Meanwhile, former Brexit minister David Jones urged the Government not to rush into a deal without seeing the details.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, he said: “This is a very large sum of money and before we make commitments we want to see what is on offer from the EU.”
Ex-Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith, a leading Leave campaigner, said Britain would “save staggering amounts of money” in the long term through no longer being in the EU.
He declared: “Leaving the EU is always a good bargain because we get our money back.”
An official spokesman for Mrs May said she still believes Britain and the EU “need to take a step forward together” in Brexit talks.