The aftermath of Brexit has given rise to a new scheme to create the “world’s most effective border”, all at a cost of £4.7 billion. Yet the National Audit Office has warned there’s no timetable for the Border Target Operating Model – a new approach to importing goods into Great Britain – to be finished.
It’s a fair chunk of money. No need to worry, however. We’ve got a few ideas on how it could be better spent.
Train
204,000
teachers
£4.7bn
Keir Starmer has pledged to recruit 6,500 new teachers if elected. For £4.7bn, we could go way further, training more 200,000 teachers – at an average cost of £23,000 per trainee. That’d increase the number of teachers in the UK by almost half.
Build three new drinking water reservoirs
As drought and growing population creates a thirstier country, the UK is in a battle to build the reservoirs to supply the water needed for the future. A new reservoir hasn’t opened in 30 years. Funding big infrastructure projects is tricky. But with £4.7bn, we could get three up and running – based on the £3.3bn Anglian Water is spending on a pair of new reservoirs.
Buy 1/24th of the world’s annual banana production, bendy or not
Few Brexit factoids captured the imagination of the tabloids as much as “bendy bananas”. The EU
