§ Mr. Porterasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on revisions to the British Gas Corporation's external financing limit following the sale of the corporation's interest in P.L. 089, which excludes the Wytch Farm oil field.
§ Mr. Peter WalkerI set out the details of the sale, in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) on 11 May. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury set out the arrangements for handling the sale proceeds in his reply to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) on 11 June.
After deducting certain expenses, BGC placed the bulk of the £85 million first tranche of the proceeds on deposit with the national loans fund at nil interest. BGC will be entitled to recover further expenses in connection with the sale, but some of these, in particular its tax liability in respect of the sale, are unlikely to be incurred during the present financial year. In order to take account of the likely balance in the NFL deposit at the end of the financial year 1984–85, the corporation has agreed that its negative external financing limit should be increased by £84 million from minus £104 million to minus £188 million.