Structural Fund (Hansard, 20 March 1991)

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will provide a breakdown of the claims made, by year from 1987, for each EC structural fund operational programme area, compared with the allocation awarded to each programme within the United Kingdom.
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based on information provided by the companies themselves at the time of the investment and take no account of subsequent developments.

§ Mr. Leigh
[holding answer 18 March 1991]: Fifty current operational programmes have to date been approved by the Commission for the United Kingdom. Details of the claims made for each of these could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what steps he has taken to ensure that EC structural fund support for the regions of the EC has an additional economic impact in those regions;
(2) what steps he intends to take to ensure that local authority spending of EC structural funds is exempt from current United Kingdom capital and revenue controls to ensure that there is a net benefit to regions with severe economic structural problems in receiving EC support.

§ Mr. Leigh
[holding answer 18 March 1991]: Expected levels of receipts from the European Community structural funds, as of other receipts from the Community, are taken into account when the Government decide the size of United Kingdom public expenditure programmes. Structural fund grants to local authorities are paid in full to the authorities concerned.

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will provide a detailed breakdown of how much of the EC structural fund support designated for programmes to take place in the eligible United Kingdom regions has been spent on United Kingdom Government Department schemes of assistance.

§ Mr. Leigh
[holding answer 18 March 1991]: The Community support frameworks agreed between the Government and the European Commission do not in general specify in detail the Departments and other authorities whose measures the European Community structural funds will support. Until each operational programme has been concluded it is not possible to say how the expenditure from it has been allocated.