In a controversial deal, the Conservatives have agreed to give the DUP £1bn for projects in Northern Ireland in return for a few votes to help them cling onto power as an unpopular minority government.
Activist and campaigner Cerian Jenkins put together a helpful list of other ways the £1bn could have been better spent on public services.
"But what's £1,000,000,000 in the grand scheme of things?"
Let's take a look, shall we?#Thread #DUPCoalition #MagicMoneyTree pic.twitter.com/7sGZH2p6ff
— Cerian Jenkins (@CerianJenkins) June 26, 2017
- A billion pounds will buy 147,000 state pensions or 300,000 jobseeker’s allowances for a year.
- Alternatively it could fund 2.3 million people’s disability living allowance per annum – three quarters of the total.
- It would cover all diagnostic imaging – MRI scans, x-rays – for a year with a bit left over for other jobs.
- Or another way would be to fund 26,000 nurses or 12,000 hospital doctors for a year.
- It could pay for 167,000 hip replacements or 1.4 million hospital day cases.
- A billion pounds could also pay for two flagship hospitals, such as Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital which opened in 2010.
- A billion pounds would provide an 8hr course of talking therapy for 2.5m people. Or 750,000 eight-session courses of mindfulness therapy.
- Or the army could pay for 40 Challenger 2 tanks. The basic production cost in 2002 of each tank was £6m.
- £1bn could fund 8,500 troops.
- With £1bn the government could, for a year, fund 27,000 primary or 22,000 secondary school teachers.
- Or give free school meals to 2.5m children.
- The average cost of a free school is £6.6 million – so that would mean about new 150 free schools.
- With £1bn the government could build 16,600 new social homes or 50,000 shared ownership homes, according to Shelter.
- £1bn could make universal the offer of 15 hours a week of childcare for 37 weeks of the year.
Helpfully, the BBC put together a list of other options for spending £1bn back in 2015
