The Week in Numbers (to July 19th)

You don't get what you pay for

265 

The number of staff the covid inquiry has on its books.

£196 million 

The Taxpayers Alliance estimates the daily cost of the Covid Inquiry to be a substantial £ 136,907, contributing to a total cost of over £196 million.

The estimated cost would make it the most expensive statutory inquiry and the most costly on a per-day basis.

£376 billion 

In the UK, we are pretty good at spending money and wasting it. According to the National Audit Office, spending on the pandemic totalled £376 billion from February 2020 to 31 March 2022.

16 times

The Taxpayers' Alliance report, which slipped under the radar yesterday, reports that the figure is so enormous “it could cover the cost of bailing out the banks in 2007-09 over 16 times.

The UK was second in terms of spending as a percentage of GDP, with the USA spending 26 percent over this period. But not to come second, the UK was one of the world’s leading spenders on covid measures; despite all this spending, the UK did not reduce excess mortality. 

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