Andrew Bridgen MP discovers that Labour spent £5 million of taxpayers' money on preparations to join the €uro

By Tim Montgomerie
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Andrew Bridgen MP (who writes a good piece on health and safety red tape on ConHome today) recently put a written question asking how much the €uro Implementation Unit cost UK taxpayers.

Mark Hoban, Treasury Minister, has just replied:

The cost of the Euro Preparations Unit in each year since its inception is difficult to ascertain, since much of the expenditure has been grouped within other departmental costs. An estimate of spending in those years that separate data were available is set out in the following table:

	Cost (£)
2001-02	1,706,252.95
2002-03	1,713,510.77
2003-04	771,743.53
2004-05	512,147.69
2005-06	45,691.88
2006-07	78,040.45
2007-08	29,620.18
2008-09	4,498.09
Total	4,861,505.54