A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has claimed that the United Kingdom could face “an extra two years of austerity measures” as a result of a British exit from the European Union (EU) was funded by an organisation that tried to cover up its European Union funding, Breitbart London can reveal.
The report, which claims “borrowing in 2019-20 would need to be £20 billion-40 billion more than currently planned… [which] would mean two more years’ austerity, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which has received nearly a quarter of a million pounds in EU funding since 2009.
A Breitbart London enquiry filed in February 2016 asked the government body: “how much the ESRC has received in funding, grants, from the european institutions since january 2006″.
An initial response from the ESRC declared “Further to your enquiry I can confirm that ESRC don’t receive grants we only allocate them.
“ESRC is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) and receives most of its funding through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).”
But buried in organisation’s annual report was the admission that the group had take EU funding, which was quickly pointed out to them. The response followed:
“Further to my last email, I apologise as I misunderstood the question and therefore provided you with an incorrect answer.”
A subsequent Freedom of Information response revealed that the ESRC was “unable” to provide full details since 2006, instead declaring that since 2009, the organisation has received £241,006.83 from the European Commission.
The response in full said:
While the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) received the majority of its funding from the UK Government’s science budget it does also receive funding from the European Commission in the form of coordination and support actions to facilitate international working within Europe. This is separate to the research funding for social science which goes directly to the relevant Higher Education Institutions from the European Commission.
Unfortunately, the ESRC changed their finance systems in November 2009 resulting in the inability to extract the data you have request from January 2006 to October 2009.
Since November 2009, the ESRC has received a total of £241,006.83 from the European Commission.
Despite being a government body dedicated to science funding, the group has run the “UK in a Changing Europe” programme which it claims “promotes rigorous, high-quality and independent research into the complex and ever changing relationship between the UK and the European Union”.
The project is run by Professor Anand Menon, a former “special advisor” to the House of Lords EU Committee, has a long history of pro-EU activism. He has described Eurosceptics as having “febrile imaginations” and has published countless pro-EU publications.
The IFS declared in the footnotes of its press release on the new report: “This work was produced with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council through the UK in a Changing Europe initiative”.
The ESRC website makes clear for grant recipients: “The commissioning fund has been created to ensure that funding is available for applicants interested particularly in pursuing dissemination and impact focused activities related to the overall aims of the initiative.”