Madam,

A correction if I may to Mr Samuel’s response to my last letter, and I’ll leave the debate. My £20 a year share of income tax to the EU does not just buy me a European Health Insurance Card so I can get basic treatment re-funded when I travel in EU countries (yes, I know about travel insurance too).

The EHIC card is one of the many things I get for that money. Other things include all the facilities I enjoy here, in Aberystwyth, and in Ceredigion more generally. It included the opportunities my children had in school and at university, which received subsidies from EU funds.

Such things are partly funded by EU Regional Development Funds, and your newspaper again mentioned some others I’d overlooked in this week’s edition: The £1.6 million for the Vale of Rheidol Railway, the European Agricultural Funding contributions made to the Cambrian Mountains Initiative, the EU funding contribution to the development of IBERS research facilities which were mentioned a week or two ago.

That’s how EU funding works. It is redistributed to member regions in need of support for their economic development. That’s why Ceredigion, and Wales, are net beneficiaries, meaning they receive substantially more from the EU than they pay in.

So Mr Samuel, I’m sure, believes that funding support will instead come from Westminster when/if we leave. One notable difference between us is that I don’t believe it and, even if one Westminster government decided to do this, the next one might not. Mr Samuel and I agree on one thing only: waste is bad, and must be stopped or, more realistically, limited to a minimum, wherever it originates from.

Your newspaper rightly reminds readers of how facilities and projects are funded here, in Ceredigion. This information matters, and is worth mentioning again and again. Thank you for doing so.

Yours etc, Marie-Helene Thomas, Aberystwyth.

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