§ Mr. RedwoodTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions which Ministers(a) discussed and (b) decided how the Dome sale should proceed. [144766]
§ Ms Armstrong[holding answer 11 January 2001]: The ministerial team considering the Legacy bid includes:
The Deputy Prime Minister;Lord Falconer, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Shareholder of the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC);Andrew Smith, Chief Secretary to the Treasury;Hilary Armstrong, Minister for Local Government and the Regions andJanet Anderson, Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting.My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was involved during the early part of the competition, but on advice from officials he withdrew from any part of the consideration of the qualifying bids and from the subsequent decisions on shortlisting and granting of preferred bidder status for the reasons set out in his reply to an answer given to the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) on 16 January 2001, Official Report, column 135W.
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§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what discussions officials in his Department have had with representatives of(a) Lattice Properties and (b) British Gas with regard to the sale of the site of the Millennium Dome. [145418]
§ Ms Armstrong[holding answer 16 January 2001]: Officials from my Department were present at one meeting in November 2000 between English Partnerships and Lattice Properties, concerning the potential sale of the Dome and contractual issues related to such a sale. Those contractual issues relate to the original purchase of the land from British Gas by English Partnerships, and therefore will be matters for discussion between English Partnerships and Lattice Properties and/or British Gas.
May I also take this opportunity to inform the House about the respective roles of the New Millennium Experience Company and English Partnerships in selling the Dome.
Now that the Millennium Experience has finished, the prime focus of the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) is on discharging their outstanding obligations and achieving an efficient wind-up.
English Partnerships (EP) continues to manage, on behalf of Government, the process of selling the Dome, in close conjunction with NMEC.
To facilitate a smooth sale process, and rationalise the arrangements within the public sector, a new agreement was signed by NMEC and EP on 12 January, to vary the original agreement to lease between the two bodies.
The new agreement provides for NMEC to terminate its occupancy of the site after it has returned all items owned by third parties. English Partnerships will then carry out the remainder of the work necessary to sell the site.
The agreement reflects the Government's decision about how the proceeds from the sale of the Dome are to be divided. In making this decision the Government have had regard to the need to balance the reasonable interests of the taxpayer and the lottery player respectively. The Government expect to apply these principles to any future sale of the Dome, irrespective of whether the current negotiations with Legacy plc are successful. The proceeds are to be divided in the following way:
The competition and other costs will be deducted from the payments for the Dome site made on Completion and the ground rent later payable on the Dome site. Of the remainder, half will be paid to English Partnerships as owners of the land, and half to the New Millennium Experience Company as owners of the Dome structure. Once NMEC has been wound up, it is intended that any remaining share of the proceeds will pass to the Millennium Commission.The same split will be applied in principle to payments made in respect of the land adjacent to the Dome which is also included in the sale, up to a threshold fixed in monetary terms. Above that threshold all payments will go to English Partnerships.The precise figures involved in any division of proceeds will not be known until a sale is finalised and costs ascertained. Certain further details, eg relating to clawback/profit share, are bound up with the current negotiations with Legacy plc, and are therefore commercially confidential; however, it is expected that broadly the same principles outlined above will apply. Currently Forecast costs to be deducted as explained above include about £15 million in relation to certain decommissioning requirements and approximately £7 million for the Dome competition.