EU Referendum: Lord Lamont Puts George Osborne in His Place

LONDON - England - With George Osborne and his Treasury number crunchers claiming today that leaving the EU will make UK householders £4,300 poorer, he neglected to mention the figure is based on the Government breaking its promise to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands.

Lord Lamont Of Lerwick

Naturally Mr. Osborne also did not mention a conclusive report from the Institute of Economic Affairs which revealed that leaving the EU would make householders £9,265 richer.

Osborne’s report further fails to take account of savings from cutting the cost of EU regulation if we Vote Leave, which the Treasury has previously admitted are as high as 7% of GDP, or £4,638 per household.

The Government calculates its £4,300 figure by dividing a supposed 6.2% lesser increase in GDP by 2030 by the current number of households – this is just another example of the Government using dodgy numbers.

Responding to the publication of HM Treasury’s assessment of the costs and benefits of EU membership, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon. Lord Lamont of Lerwick said:

“They say economists put a decimal point in their forecasts to show that they have a sense of humour. The Chancellor has endorsed a forecast which looks 14 years ahead and predicts a fall in GDP of less than 0.5 per cent a year – well within the margin of error. Few forecasts are right for 14 months, let alone 14 years. Such precision is spurious, and entirely unbelievable.”

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of Vote Leave, said:

“The headline figures in this report are deeply flawed. It is not credible to make these claims without showing your workings or the alternative you are comparing it to. It also ignores the Treasury’s own analysis that EU regulation costs the UK economy much more – a staggering £125 billion a year.

“As the Prime Minister himself said, we are the fifth biggest economy in the world and outside of the EU we won’t stop trading with Europe. There’s a free trade zone from Iceland to Turkey and we will be part of that, securing jobs and boosting the economy.

“If we Vote Leave we will also be able to make deals with growing countries like China and India which will help businesses to grow, create jobs and make our economy stronger.”

Looks like it’s back to drawing board eh Georgie boy..