Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Written Evidence


Select Committee's Urban Affairs Sub-Committee on Coalfield Communities

  Thank you for the opportunity to provide a response to the sub-committee on business support for coalfields. The numbering below refers to the questions raised in your letter of 24 October:

Question 1

  ODPM take the lead in coal policy and regeneration. Although DTI has a Coal directorate which deals with ongoing issues in the industry, it does not generally deal with closures. Exceptionally, DTI did co-ordinate a response to the Haskins report on Selby coalfield closures produced in Autumn 2002 for Patricia Hewitt. However the response to that report, produced in February 2003, made it clear that responsibility for co-ordinating this work rests with the appropriate RDA (in that case Yorkshire Forward), working with local agencies and OGDs as needed.

  RDAs are ideally placed to be able to work with industry, including coalfields, where closures are generally planned well in advance, to tackle the problems arising from closures, working with partners including Government Offices and departments centrally as necessary. If the sub-committee recommends the setting up of a working group, I would be content for my officials to participate.

Questions 2 and 3

  The UK Government remains committed to a strong regional policy aimed at delivering prosperity for all and we believe that our proposed EU Framework for Devolved Regional Policy offers the best deal for the UK. Under this proposal, richer EU Member States such as the UK would fund their own regional programmes within that EU Framework.

  If the Framework were agreed, the Government would guarantee that, by increasing its spending on regional policy, nations and regions would receive a level of resources which ensured they did not lose out from the UK's proposals on Structural Funds reform, for example from the transitional funding they would automatically have received from the application of the eligibility criteria to EU 25 instead of EU15. We would commit to ensuring that nations and regions have sufficient resources to continue to be able to promote regional productivity and employment from increased domestic spending on regional policy, targeted on those areas of high unemployment and low GDP.

  We are currently working to flesh out the details of our proposal and how we see it operating. This will be the subject of a more detailed statement on the future of the Funds, following the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry's September statement on this issue, which we aim to issue at the end of November.

  It is not yet certain that Assisted Areas maps will continue to be used to determine levels of support, although it seems likely that maps will survive in some form. The UK will wish to secure the best deal for those areas of most significant deprivation. However, there is a long way to go in terms of negotiating the package of measures available to the UK post 2006 and we cannot say yet how this will affect coalfields specifically.

  I hope that this information is helpful to the inquiry.

Jacqui Smith

15 November 2003





 
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