§ Mr. Spearingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what budgetary sums were received from and paid to each member State of the EEC in 1975 and 1976, converted into £ sterling at the European Unit of Account; and what is the likely sum for 1977.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe amount paid by each member State to the Community Budget in 1975 converted into £ sterling at the conversion rate used for the budget of £1= 2.4 units of account was as follows:
£ million Belgium … … … 164.9 Denmark … … … 44.5 France … … … 538.7 Germany … … … 666.3 Ireland … … … 10.9 Italy … … … 415.2 Luxembourg … … … 3.5 Netherlands … … … 219.8 United Kingdom … … 341.7 Actual payments for 1976 are not yet available for each member State. The amount in £ sterling, converted at £1= 2.4 ua, of each member State's contribution to the total 1976 Community Budget and to the total 1977 Community Budget 523W —including the supplementary budget currently, under consideration by the Council of Ministers is as follows:
£ million 1976 1977 Belgium 217.5 227.8 Denmark 69.2 88.3 France 736.4 771.4 Germany 942.2 1,022.2 Ireland 17.6 23.3 Italy 586.8 639.8 Luxembourg 5.3 5.5 Netherlands 300.8 328.0 United Kingdom 556.9 736.8 The United Kingdom's actual payment in 1976 was £462.8 million and the estimate for 1977, as published in "The Government's Expenditure Plans" (Cmnd. 6721–11) is £725 million.
Actual payments in a year do not correspond exactly to member States' shares of the budget for that year, since, under the rules governing Community financial transactions, some budgetary provision is carried forward and expenditure actually takes place in a later financial year than that to which it relates. Payments made by member States in 1977 will therefore be partly to meet expenditure from the 1977 budget and partly to meet expenditure carried forward from earlier years.
The United Kingdom receipts from the Community are as follows:
£ million 1975 397.7 1976 295.5 1977 (as estimated in Cmnd. 6721) 295.0 Information on which to base an estimate of receipts to member States other than the United Kingdom from the Community budget is not available.