14:05

In its analysis of the EU financial settlement (pdf) the OBR points out that, even though the government will stop making full contributions to the EU after Brexit, the government has committed to spend money on items that used to get funding through EU membership. In paragraph B.45 it puts figures on these commitments.

Farm support - around £3bn a year

Shared prosperity fund (a proposed fund to replace EU structural funds, which fund projects in deprived areas) - around £1bn a year

Overseas development assistance (putting money that went into the EU’s aid budget into the UK’s aid budget instead) - around £1bn a year

Science and education (contributions to allow the UK to continue participating in programmes like Erasmus, Creative Europe and Horizon 2020) - around 2bn a year

Regulatory agencies (participating in various EU agencies) - around £40m a year.

This chart compares how much the UK has been contributing to the EU (the light blue bars), with the amount it will pay after Brexit as part of the “divorce bill” (the dark blue bars) and the money it will spend on items that used to be funded by the EU (the yellow bars).

The black diamonds also represent the “no referendum counterfactual” - what the UK would have spent if it had carried on in the EU. If the UK does go ahead with the “assumed spending in lieu of EU transfers” assumed by the OBR, there is no saving at all.

This does imply that the Vote Leave “£350m per week for the NHS” may be a long time coming ...