Government minister claims Brexit dividend that never existed has been re-routed into NHS

The claim suggests the NHS has been receiving £350m per week

The chief secretary to the treasury has falsely claimed that the NHS has been in receipt of an extra £350m per week since the UK left the European Union. Minister Simon Clarke has said the government re-routed £350m, originally paid to the EU, back into the NHS - despite having no evidence to corroborate his claim. It is broadly accepted that the UK never paid the EU a net figure of £350m, meaning it would not be possible for the government to redistribute that money back into the health service. On Monday morning, Sky News journalist Kay Burley presented Clarke with an image of the infamous Brexit double-decker bus, plastered with the promise that leaving the European Union would benefit the NHS with an additional £350m per-week. Since its original appearance on Vote Leave's Brexit campaign bus in the lead up to the referendum, the legitimacy of the now-ubiquitous slogan has been widely disputed. It's understood the figure is closer to £250m - but in any case, the impact on the economy from changes to trade have been larger than any savings from the UK’s membership fee. In 2017, the UK Statistics Authority described the figure as “a clear misuse of official statistics” that "undermines trust in official statistics while the Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson, said that the divorce bill and the government’s commitment to replace EU funding “already uses up all of our EU contributions in 2022.” Related links:

• Sue Gray update has been delivered to Number 10
• Mandatory covid jabs for health workers could be scrapped amid staffing fears
• Cressida Dick: all the times the Met police chief got it wrong