§ Mr. Barry JonesTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the number of jobs in those areas currently enjoying assisted area status.
§ Mr. SainsburyOf the 322 travel-to-work areas in Great Britain, 99 have assisted area status including Manchester which is part non-assisted. The latest available data on employment at TTWA level come from the 1989 census of employment. This gives the number of employees in employment, excluding self-employed, in all assisted areas as 7,230,384. The total for Great Britain was 22,234,458.
§ Mr. Barry JonesTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what has been the amount of(a) Government grants and (b) European Community grants given in each of the last five years to assisted area status locations.
§ Mr. SainsburyOn(a), Government expenditure by my Department in each of the last five financial years in respect of regional selective assistance, regional enterprise grants, consultancy initiative, expenditure by English Estates on land and factories and on residual expenditure under the regional development grants schemes, to locations in England with assisted area status were:
£ million at current prices 1987–88 271 1988–89 323 1989–90 280 1990–91 223 1991–92 175 Details of expenditure on other schemes run by my Department are not held on a regional basis.
On (b), the European Community makes many different types of grant to the United Kingdom. Of these, part of the structural funds is regionally allocated under objectives 1, 2 and 5B. The only area in the United Kingdom that receives moneys under objective 1 is Northern Ireland. Regions designated under objectives 2 and 5B equate approximately to the assisted areas of Great Britain as designated by my Department. Totals allocated to these two areas in each of the calendar years 1989 to 1993 were:
850W
£ million at current prices 1989 321 1990 466 1991 450 1992 619 1993 643
§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to announce the results of the review of assisted area status.
§ Mr. SainsburyOur intention is to announce the results of the assisted areas map review as early as possible, taking account of the outcome of the coal review and after the necessary clearance of the European Commission.