Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office figures have confirmed that the Northern Ireland Protocol paperwork is costing taxpayers £16.8m per month or £506m from August 2020 until February 2023.
£500m would go a very long way in funding extra nurses, teachers, doctors and firefighters.
This works out at £16.8m per month. That’s the annual salary of 440 highly experienced nurses being spent every month on unnecessary paperwork brought about by a politically inspired Protocol.
This is taxpayers’ money and is being swallowed up in paperwork to enable the movement of goods from one part of the United Kingdom to another.
This is further confirmation as to why we need to have the Protocol replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market.