CERN Project (Hansard, 20 November 2003)

§ Mr. Page
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what percentage of UK funds directed towards the CERN project is being treated as capital against resource. [139061]

§ Ms Hewitt
At this point in time, the UK subscription to CERN is not formally divided into capital and resource and is currently regarded as resource expenditure. This is an area of discussion between HM Treasury, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and my department. It should be noted that CERN is currently in the middle of a 12 year, €3.2 billion project to construct the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will be the world's most powerful particle accelerator. Its expected commissioning date is April 2007.
Whilst capital spend at CERN will fall to almost zero in 2007 when the LHC machine is completed, CERN have negotiated a loan to facilitate the expenditure profile with a repayment schedule to 2011. This will mean that a proportion of the UK subscription will be used for capital repayment to 2011. In parallel, as the operations and exploitation phase begins, an increasing fraction of the UK subscription will be devoted to meeting the associated operating costs. The following table of capital expenditure is estimated by taking the UK's share of CERN's capital spending plans.
Treasury purposes. The LHC capital element of this funding has been estimated by identifying the contributions towards the detectors and similar items and is shown in the following table:

§ Ms Hewitt
CERN is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, an international organisation established in 1954 in Geneva. The UK is a founder member. The total resource allocated to the UK 1417W subscription to CERN over the previous three years and the projected figures for 2003–4 to 2007–08 are shown below¹.

Total resource for UK subscription to CERN

£million

1999–00 48.8

2000–1 69.1

2001–2 66.2

2002–3 68.9

2003–4 71.5

2004–5 71.4

UK domestic expenditure on construction and operation of CERN experiment

£million

1997–8 1998–9 1999–00 2000–1 2001–2 2002–3 2003–4 2004–5 2005–6

LHC 0 8.3 10.1 11.2 16.8 23 26.7 27.6 24.0

Other 3.5 3.2 2.4 2.2 0.6 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2

Total: 3.5 11.6 12.6 13.3 17.4 23.4 27.0 27.8 24.2

¹ The figures are in pounds and UK financial years, but the subscription is actually set in Swiss Francs and calendar years, and also varies according to the UK's net national income in comparison to that of other Member States. The figures for 2003–04 and onwards are latest, estimates.

Total resource for UK subscription to CERN
	£million
1999–00	48.8
2000–1	69.1
2001–2	66.2
2002–3	68.9
2003–4	71.5
2004–5	71.4

UK domestic expenditure on construction and operation of CERN experiment
£million
	1997–8	1998–9	1999–00	2000–1	2001–2	2002–3	2003–4	2004–5	2005–6
LHC	0	8.3	10.1	11.2	16.8	23	26.7	27.6	24.0
Other	3.5	3.2	2.4	2.2	0.6	0.4	0.3	0.2	0.2
Total:	3.5	11.6	12.6	13.3	17.4	23.4	27.0	27.8	24.2
¹ The figures are in pounds and UK financial years, but the subscription is actually set in Swiss Francs and calendar years, and also varies according to the UK's net national income in comparison to that of other Member States. The figures for 2003–04 and onwards are latest, estimates.