Flood-hit areas should recieve all £110million

The decision of the Treasury to pocket nearly £80million of the £110million allocated to Britain from the EU’s Solidarity Fund following last summer’s floods, is regretable.

Unfortunately the issue is further clouded by Conservative attempts to blame Tony Blair and some newspapers proclaiming a “Brussels snatch”.

As the press release from Local Government Minister John Healey explains, the reason only £31million will go to the areas hit by last year’s flooding is to do with the way the UK rebate works.

The rebate refunds to Britain roughly two-thirds of the deficit between the annual total of EU monies raised in the UK and of EU expenditure in the UK. As a result, any extra sums spent in Britain, such as the solidarity fund grant, reduce the UK's deficit. This in turn reduces the size of the eventual rebate by a sum equivalent to two thirds of the extra expenditure in question.

So in short, the Treasury is retaining such a huge chunk of money meant for the flood-hit areas so that it will not lose out when Britain's rebate is calculated.

Throughout the year there will be many issues that effect the amount Britain receives in the rebate and this is of course inevitable but I find it astonishing that the Treasury is guarding against a dip in Britain’s rebate at the expense of hard-hit flood victims and their devestated towns. After all, when extra money comes to farmers through agricultural spending or to poorer regions through structural funding, it does not retain the money in this way.

In our region Hull, Doncaster and Sheffield amongst others all suffered severely from the flooding and I voted for this money in the European Parliament to help them recover. The full £110million should be spent on the areas affected, not hoarded by a mandarin in the Treasury.

You can read my letter to John Healey by clicking here.