§ Mr. SymsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions following the announcement of the Local Transport Plan capital settlement on 14 December, what money has been unallocated and kept in the LTP Reserve Fund for(a) 2001–02, (b) 2002–03, (c) 2003–04, (d) 2004–05 and (e) 2005–06. [143437]
§ Mr. HillAs announced by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister on 14 December 2000,Official Report, column 202W, £8.43 billion has been made available for local transport over the five years from April 2001.
Amounts have been held back for each of the five years covered by the settlement. A large portion of these reserves are made up of resources that will be made available to authorities in respect of:
- (a) the integrated transport block—for which 10 per cent. of the total available for each of the years between 2002–03 and 2005–06 has been held back;
121W - (b) highway maintenance—for which for the three years from 2003–04 to 2005–06 the indicative allocations made to authorities are currently only 75 per cent. of their 2002–03 allocations. The unallocated provision will allow the distribution of highway maintenance funding from 2003–04 onwards to reflect improved condition data.
In addition, resources have set aside for major local transport schemes which are defined as those with a gross cost of over £5 million. The resource; will be used to fund fully accepted schemes. We have given a total allocation for these schemes but precise annual allocations depend on progress with each scheme and cannot be accurately forecast at this stage; provisionally accepted schemes, for which we have in some cases earmarked resources which will he made available once outstanding issues, such as completion of appropriate statutory Procedures have been addressed; and possible additional major schemes on which we do not yet have sufficient information to make a decision since authorities have not yet completed full appraisals or which may become necessary, for example arising from the reports of Multi-Modal Studies.
Each year, as part of the annual settlement, the indicative allocations will be confirmed or revised, reflecting the use to be made of the reserve and decisions made on funding for major schemes.
In addition, for 2001–02 small amounts have been held back to fund capital works necessary to prepare for charging schemes in cases where authorities have endorsed a decision to introduce congestion charging and put forward a set of costed proposals; emergency works, particularly given the damage caused by this winter's flooding; and schemes under the Industrial Development Act 1982.
Taking all of these elements into account the total sums yet to be allocated are:
£ million 2001–02 125 2002–03 482 2003–04 754 2004–05 1,013 2005–06 993