§ Sir Sydney ChapmanTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister in respect of(a) speculative and (b) bespoke developments, how many grants have been made under the business and commercial property gap funding scheme; what their total value is; to whom they have been made; what the total area of land involved is; and what proportion of the total land was previously undeveloped. [128957]
§ Keith HillThe State aid approval for speculative and bespoke gap-funding of business and commercial developments enables English Partnerships, the Regional Development Agencies and Local Authorities to support private sector initial investment in land and property regeneration projects that would not have proceeded without public sector support.
Speculative and bespoke gap-funding of business and commercial developments received approval from the European Commission in May last year and since then has been used to facilitate a number of projects through grants and other mechanisms, with the Regional Development Agencies providing over £25 million in support to projects under these approvals up to the end of the fiscal year 2002–03 and predict providing support 461W of over £12 million for fiscal year 2003–04. It is expected that speculative and bespoke gap-funding will continue to enable projects to go ahead in the future.
§ Sir Sydney ChapmanTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister how much additional money is being made available in 2003–04 to(a) English Partnerships, (b) Regional Development Agencies and (c) local authorities for making grants available under (i) the Business and Commercial Property Gap Funding Scheme, (ii) the Housing Gap Funding Scheme, (iii) the Heritage Aid Scheme and (iv) the Land Remediation/Dereliction Aid Scheme; and what resources were available under the former Partnership Investment Programme. [128958]
§ Keith HillState aid approvals are purely enabling actions, which allow English Partnerships, the Regional Development Agencies and Local Authorities to spend from their existing allocations in accordance with the State aid regime. No extra money has been made available through the granting of these approvals; they simply facilitate the aid granting bodies in providing support for regeneration from their existing budgets.
English Partnerships' Partnership Investment Programme was financed from English Partnerships annual allocation; no money was ring-fenced within English Partnerships budget to finance the programme.