HC Deb 10 November 1999 vol 337 cc644-5W
Mr. Sanders

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) of 2 November 1999,Official Report, column 168, on the EU Budget, if he will convert into sterling, the figures contained in his answer. [97806]

Miss Melanie Johnson

The information requested is set out in the following tables. The amounts shown in sterling have been converted from European Currency Units using the annual average exchange rate for 1997 quoted by the Bank of England.

Contributions to and receipts from the EC Budget in 1997
Gross contribution (£ million) Receipts (£ million) Net contribution/receipt1 (£ million) Population (millions) Number of households (millions) Gross contribution per head (£)
Greece 812.1 3,702.5 -2,890.4 10.5 3.2 77.1
Spain 3,699.2 7,731.3 -4.032.1 39.3 11.8 94.1
France 9,087.5 8,408.6 678.8 58.6 21.5 155.1
Ireland 473.4 2,281.6 -1,808.2 3.6 1.0 132.1
Italy 5,973.2 5,750.5 222.7 57.4 19.9 104.1
Luxembourg 117.6 73.1 44.5 0.4 0.1 286.1
Netherlands 3,334.0 1,715.3 1,618.7 15.5 6.2 214.6
Austria 1,454.4 908.1 546.4 8.1 3.0 179.6
Portugal 742.8 2,543.1 -1,800.4 9.9 3.1 75.4
Finland 733.4 736.6 -3.2 5.1 2.0 143.1
Sweden 1,603.0 757.5 845.5 8.9 3.8 179.7
UK 6,151.6 4,887.8 1,263.8 59.0 22.4 104.3

Gross contribution per household (£) Receipts per head (£) Receipts per household (£) Net contribution per head (£) Net contribution per household (£)
Belgium 518.0 134.0 345.5 66.9 172.5
Denmark 4.564 200.9 463.6 -3.2 -7.3
Germany 414.9 83.9 195.3 94.3 219.5
Greece 253.5 351.6 1,155.6 -274.5 -902.1
Spain 312.5 196.7 653.2 -102.6 -340.7
France 421.8 143.5 390.3 11.6 31.5
Ireland 460.1 636.6 2,217.3 -504.5 -1,757.2
Italy 300.0 100.2 288.8 3.9 11.2
Luxembourg 811.0 177.9 504.3 108.2 306.8
Netherlands 541.1 110.4 278.4 104.2 262.7
Austria 482.7 112.1 301.4 67.5 181.3
Portugal 236.1 258.0 808.4 -182.7 -572.3
Finland 360.0 143.7 361.6 -0.6 -1.6
Sweden 418.5 84.9 197.8 94.8 220.7
UK 274.4 82.8 218.0 21.4 56.4
1 (-) denotes net recipient

Notes:

  1. 1. The Court of Auditors uses ecu figures, the unit of account for the EC Budget.
  2. 2. Gross contribution figures are after account has been taken of the UK's abatement (including corrections in respect of earlier years) and for adjustments to VAT and GNP-based contributions in respect of earlier years.
  3. 3. Receipts figures include European Commission payments made direct to the member state's private sector.
  4. 4. The Court of Auditors Report odes not allocate all Community spending to the member states so that the receipts figures in the table may not represent the full amount of expenditure by the Commission in each member state. Consequently the figures for net contributions/net benefits in the table are likely only to be indicative of the amount of member states' net positions. For example, if all administrative expenditure were allocated to the country in which is it paid, the net position of Belgium and Luxembourg would be substantially improved.
  5. 5. Figures converted from ECU using the annual average exchange rate (1.4510) for 1997 quoted by the Bank of England.

Sources:

Contributions and receipts data taken from Court of Auditors Report on 1997 Community Budget.

Population data, relating to 1997, taken from the European Commission's document "European Economy".

Information on number of households relations to 1991, the latest available, and is taken from the Eurostat yearbook 1997.