Draw a line under extravagant spending, says MEP

Paul Nuttall, UKIP’s Deputy Leader

MEP Paul Nuttall has hit out at Eurocrats for throwing away taxpayers' money on a visitor centre which gets fewer visitors than Keswick's pencil museum.

The centre in Brussels is free but only attracted 50,000 people while the pencil museum charges an entrance fee and had twice as many visitors.

"Other such attractions in this country, which do not receive EU cash, also doubtless exceed the visitor centre figures," said Mr Nuttall, UKIP Euro-MP for the North West.

It has just been revealed that the European Commission has recently spent one million euros (£850,000) - the equivalent to £170 per visitor – moving the “attraction” to a new home, which was officially opened last month.

"If it wasn't bad enough that the EU lavished £18m on its 'Parlamentarium' i.e. its propaganda centre, we now learn that a further million euros has been spent on this other centre just half a mile away," said Mr Nuttall, UKIP Deputy Leader.

"It is an outrage to decent hard working people, not just in this country, but across the EU, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet. Instead of chucking money at ventures telling us how great it thinks it is it should be tackling waste.

"The need for a referendum becomes ever more urgent so that we can vote to leave the bureaucratic nightmare that is the European Union," he said.

"EU Commission Vice-President ­Viviane Reding has said that 'the centre aims to give visitors an insight into how the Commission works.

"Now that would be a revelation as its decisions are made by 3,000 committees which sit in secret and whose members are unknown," he added.