§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the evidential basis is for the statement in Cm 5511 page 47, paragraph 5.13 on assemblies covering additional running costs through more effective targeting of resources and efficiency improvements. [151007]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe Government will expect elected assemblies to deliver the best value for money for their voters. The Government will look to them to seek continuing annual improvements in efficiency in the same way that many private and public sector organisations achieve such savings. Bringing together into one organisation linked resource decisions currently undertaken by a range of disparate organisations will enable better, more consistent targeting and cut out duplication.
§ Ann WintertonTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list(a) the recipient organisations and (b) the financial amounts over which the proposed regional assemblies would have influence in the (i) £1,100 million for the Yorkshire and the Humber region, (ii) £600 million for the North East region and (iii) £1,600 million for the North West region [151898]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe recipient organisations and the financial amounts that elected assemblies would have influence over are:
743W
£million Recipient organization North East North West Yorkshire and the Humber Local Learning and Skills Councils 420 1,027 693 Small Business Service "core" services 6.1 18.1 13.5 Local Transport Plans 106 324 181 Lottery distributors 23.2 56.1 41.5 Environment Agency 0.08 0.5 n/a English Nature 2.3 3.7 4.4 Countryside Agency 1.2 1.2 1.9 Highways Agency 86.9 262.4 202.8 Total influencing budget 645.78 1,693 1,138.1
§ Ann WintertonTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister from which budget(a) £1,100 million funding for the Yorkshire and the Humber region, (b) £600 million funding for the North East region and (iii) £1,600 million funding for the North West region comes. [151899]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe budgets for which a future elected regional assembly would be responsible are currently allocated to the Government Offices and non-departmental public bodies from central Government Departments.
§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what matters are subject to scrutiny by the regional chambers in each of the English regions, and what the cost to public funds for each region was in each of the last three years. [152106]
§ Mr. RaynsfordRegional chambers were each allocated a Government grant of £500,000 in 2001–02 and £600,000 in each of 2002⤓03 and 2003–04 in order to help develop their capacity, specifically including their ability to undertake scrutiny of the Regional Development Agency for their region.
The details of the coverage of that scrutiny, and the process, vary from region to region and time to time, by agreement between the chamber and its Regional Development Agency.
§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will estimate the cost savings that will be made as a result of transferring powers and responsibilities currently held by the Government Offices for the Regions to elected regional assemblies [152259]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe Office of the Deputy Prime Minister estimates that each assembly would cost around £25 million a year to run. But £5 million of this cost will be directly offset because staff will be transferring from existing bodies, such as the region's Government Office.
§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what powers and responsibilities he expects elected regional assemblies to exercise that are exercised by(a) central Government and (b) local government. [152260]
§ Mr. RaynsfordI refer the hon. Member to the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on 8 December 2003,Official Report, column 347W.