Billions lost to Brexit could make NHS waiting lists disappear, top economist says

The billions the UK has lost to Brexit could wipe out NHS waiting lists and create a world-class service if recouped, a leading economist has warned.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Nick Bloom, a professor at Stanford University, said up to 8 per cent of GDP was wiped off the UK economy by leaving Europe, through lost trade, increased red tape and delays in pushing the Brexit deal through.

That is close to the 9.7 per cent spent on health before the Covid pandemic, which he said could be used to bolster the overrun and struggling health service.

He said infamous claims made by the Leave campaign that Brexit could free up £350m a week to spend on the NHS, in a controversial slogan emblazoned across the side of a battle bus, were “exactly and perfectly wrong”.

Prof Bloom urged the UK government to forge closer ties to the bloc in a bid to limit the damage further and claw some of the losses back.

He said: “So we’ve lost six to 8 per cent [because of Brexit]. Imagine getting that back and spending all that money we lost on the NHS. Suddenly, you would go from the current NHS to one that would be amazing.

“Budgets would go up by about two thirds, probably waiting lists would disappear. Hospitals would be refurbished, you’d have better paid doctors, better paid nurses, better equipment… So one way to look at it is all the money we’ve lost. If we hadn’t lost it, we could have spent it on the NHS. We’d have a world-class national health service.”

Prof Bloom, who was speaking to The Independent as part of its Europe: The Way Back campaign, which is calling for the UK to rebuild its relationship with Europe, is the co-author of research which shows Brexit caused the economy to shrink between 6 to 8 per cent – more than previously thought.

He said the figure “is an enormous amount” adding: “It’s something like £3,000 a year, per typical British person, that we’ve lost.”

He said roughly half was lost because “Brexit itself was just bad news, because it makes it harder for British firms to trade with Europe, and Europe’s about half of our trade pre-Brexit”, while the other half was due to the “mess” of approving the final deal.

“So the vote happened in 2016, but it took several years of back and forwards, and multiple prime ministers, and votes, and re-votes, and haggles, negotiations. And so businesses over this period were left uncertain and paused on investment, paused on hiring, and finally we have Brexit done,” he said.

He said the government was doing the right thing by seeking closer tries to the EU but cautioned that one of the biggest threats to that was Reform leader Nigel Farage – for decades the main driver behind getting the UK out of the EU – who remains a “spectre” still impeding the UK’s economic recovery.

“Andy Burnham’s doing a juggling act,” he said. “He’s got many balls in the air, but he’d like to get closer to the European Union. Why? Because it would improve the economy. Why? Because that would mean he doesn’t have to put up taxes or cut spending.

“But the big cost of it is this – Farage, and the Brexiteers waiting in the wings, ready to pounce on him. So he’s like every politician, trying to kind of do one thing, get closer, but say another thing, which is we are independent and have our sovereignty. And good luck to him squaring that circle.”

Former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell said the suggestion that Brexit would unlock more funds for the NHS was “fundamentally dishonest on a Trumpian scale” and said leaving the EU had “undermined the ability of the UK economy to create successful business and create wealth”.

He called on the “political class to face up to the fact that this has been a national disaster”, adding: “Until we address that issue head-on, we will continue to be impoverished by the events of 2016.”

Emma Knaggs, from pro-EU group European Movement UK, said leaving the EU had “hit us all in the pocket”.

She said: “While EU countries continue to trade with ease, UK businesses now waste tens of thousands of hours and millions of pounds meeting red-tape requirements that simply were not there before.

“That translates to billions of pounds of lost revenue that isn’t available for vital services like the NHS. To deliver the government’s own agenda for growth, ease cost-of-living pressure for all of us and boost our public services, being part of the single market and ultimately the EU is the best way to achieve it. A decade on, the UK’s experiment with life outside the world’s biggest free market has failed with death by a thousand cuts. The time to be honest about that is long overdue.”

Naomi Smith, chief executive of Best for Britain, which campaigns for the UK’s restored EU membership, said Brexit had resulted in a “slow and painful death by 1,000 cuts for the UK economy, and the knock-on effect to our struggling public services, with experts like Nick Bloom now rightly highlighting the appalling damage to our healthcare”.

The Cabinet Office and Reform have been approached for comment.

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