§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make an assessment of the operation of the system by which European regional development funds are filtered through to local authorities and other organisations; and what currently available tables he has for take-up of European development funds by the United Kingdom, in percentages, in relation to other member states. [37279]
§ Mr. OppenheimGrants are decided and offered by Government Departments after a procedure, agreed by a monitoring committee for the area concerned, which includes scoring applications against project selection criteria and consultation with members of the committee, for example in working groups.
The projects selection criteria have only recently been introduced. I will make an assessment in due course.
The European Commission's most recent annual report on the implementation of the reform of the structural funds includes tables for commitments and payments for the period 1989–1993. These show that the UK committed all allocations from the European regional development fund. Payments to the UK made by the end of 1993 were 86.8 per cent., 68.1 per cent. and 76.3 per cent. of these commitments for objectives 1, 2 and 5(b) respectively. Payments for the Community as a whole were 86.2 per cent., 71.3 per cent. and 77.0 per cent. Payments can continue until the end of 1995.