Britain is set to hand over a whopping £9.4 billion post-Brussels divorce settlement to Brussels this year, according to official EU figures.
The big bill will still leave the UK with a whopping £26.6 billion left to pay under the terms of the withdrawal deal, the Commission says.
It will swell the bloc’s coffers at a time when the UK and other European countries are grappling with rising inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.
Brussels’ estimate of this year’s payment is almost £3bn higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast.
The price was expected to rise due to the weakening of the pound against the euro, in which the settlement is paid.
The Treasury puts the final divorce bill at between £35bn and £39bn, while the Commission has put it slightly higher at £41bn.
It was agreed in 2019 and covers the money the UK has already pledged in EU schemes as a member, plus the pensions of British workers.
However, ministers confirmed that the money is not restricted and goes into the bloc’s general budget, meaning eurocrats can use it as they wish.
It comes amid an ongoing cabinet row that could derail efforts to scrap EU laws over the next decade.
‘Major infighting’ over Brexit bureaucracy
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit options minister, is pushing for red tape in Brussels to be scrapped by June 23, 2026, the 10th anniversary of the referendum.
Discussions are underway to insert “sunset clauses” into the bill – which would set a deadline for EU laws to expire – with various dates being considered. In addition to the 10th anniversary of the referendum, another is January 31, 2030, when it will be a decade since Britain left the EU.
But after pushback from the Cabinet, Brexiteers now fear plans for a hard deadline will be watered down.
“There are major internal battles around the Brexit options bill over the sunset clauses,” a government source said.
“The Treasury moans and says we have to keep a lot of EU law, especially on taxation. BEIS and Defra say we cannot repeal secondary legislation. It’s possible that Jacob could still win, but there’s opposition in the cabinet, he’s losing the battle.”
Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is understood to be “not happy about it at all,” with a source adding: “She wants to stop all of this, forcing civil servants in the government to consider everything before a certain year, or it gets struck off the statute book “.
The “confusion” will cost the business
The Brexit Options Bill, which aims to make it easier to remove EU laws from the statute book, will be published later this year.
About 20,000 such pieces of legislation exist, according to estimates from the House of Commons library.
Earlier this month, George Eustis, the environment secretary, wrote to Mr Rees-Mogg to say that “messing around” with some rules would mean extra costs for businesses and would be a waste of civil servants’ time.
A decision is expected soon, with a Whitehall source insisting the Prime Minister is “very supportive” of setting a deadline as soon as possible. “Some departments get in the way more than others,” the source said.
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