§ Mr. Hicksasked the Secretary of State for Trade arid Industry, for the last year for which figures are available, what was the total amount of financial assistance made available as regional aid to each United Kingdom assisted area; and if he will express these figures as the amount per head of the insured population for the areas covered.
§ Mr. Giles ShawThe most recent figures available for regional aid as defined are provisional estimates for 1985–86. Payments and payments per head made under the conditions for assistance relating to the pre-29 November 1984 assisted areas were as follows:
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DA IA Assisted areas (post-28 November 1984 definitions) Payments3 4 (£ million) Payments per head5(£) Payments3 4 (£ million) Payments per head5(£) North West 16.7 17.04 2.8 3.02 Yorkshire and Humberside 6.4 39.31 2.8 2.98 East Midlands 1.7 72.06 0.2 16.08 South West 1.5 22.89 0.7 3.99 West Midlands — — 5.6 3.38 Notes: The items included in the payments are section 7, regional selective assistance and new regional development grants under the Industrial Development Act 1984 and expenditure on land and factories in the assisted areas by the English Industrial Estates Corporation and the Welsh Development Agency. The tables exclude payments of £147.1 million (£251.39 per head of the working population) to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has a different range of financial incentives, but the figure has been restricted to aids similar to the main forms of regional aid available to Great Britain. 3 All figures are gross and include payments to nationalised industries. 4 It has not been possible to provide a breakdown by assisted area type for expenditure by the Highlands and Islands Development Board, the Development Board for Rural Wales and expenditure on land and factories by the Scottish Development Agency; the expenditures concerned are £17.9, £0.5 and £32.4 million respectively. 5 Information on the insured population is not available in terms of the current assisted areas map coverage. Therefore payments per head have been calculated using estimates of the working population for these areas.
§ Mr. Wareingasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what percentage of the total regional development grant received in the Merseyside special development area in each of the years 1981 to 1985, inclusive, was paid to firms investing (a) within the county of Merseyside and (b) within the city of Liverpool;
(2) what was the total payment of regional development grant to firms investing in the Merseyside special development area in each of the years 1981 to 1985, inclusive; and what were the comparable figures for those investing (a) within the county of Merseyside, and (b) within the city of Liverpool in each of those years.
§ Mr. Giles Shaw[pursuant to his reply, 27 October 1986]: No special development areas (SDAs) have existed since the regional policy changes of November 1984. The following information relates to the Merseyside SDA as it was until that date and to payments of old-style regional development grants only. The figures quoted are the totals of individual payments of over £25,000, since payments below this size cannot be attributed to any unit smaller than a planning region. The information is as follows:
£'000 Calendar Year Merseyside County Merseyside SDA Liverpool City 1981 85,812 73,517 (86) 925(1) 1982 72,047 65,402 (91) 1,880(3) 1983 58,459 57,028 (98) 1,584 (3) 1984 61,054 59,840 (98) 1,596(3) 1985 38,000 37,597 (99) 737 (2) Notes:
(i) Merseyside county consists of the following travel-to-work areas: Birkenhead, Liverpool, Widnes, St. Helens and Southport.
(ii) The Merseyside SDA consists of the Birkenhead, Liverpool and Widnes travel-to-work areas.
(iii) Liverpool city consists of Everton and Toxteth employment office areas.
(iv) Figures in brackets represent the percentages of grant paid to establishments in the Merseyside SDA and Liverpool city within the totals for Merseyside county.