Expenditure and European Community Transfers

HC Deb 21 May 1992 vol 208 cc244-5W

Mr. John D. Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was(a) the total public expenditure and (b) the estimated European Community transfers in Northern Ireland in each of the latest five years for which figures are available.

Mr. Mates

The total expenditure within the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for the past five complete financial years was as follows:

Year	£ million
1987–88	4,828
1988–89	5,436
1989–90	5,724
1990–91	5,870
1991–92	6,449

Northern Ireland's largest single source of European Community funding is the guarantee section of the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund. The bulk of such receipts are disbursed centrally by the Intervention Board Executive Agency—IBEA—and details on a regional basis are not available. The following amounts, however, have been identified as receipts from the three structural funds:

Year	£ million
1987–88	111
1988–89	96
1989–90	95
1990–91	110
1991–92	156

Note: Figures for 1991–92 are, in both cases, provisional.