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15 Jun 2005 : Column 402W—continued
CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT
Live8
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what discussions she had with (a) local residents, (b) amenity societies and (c) other interested parties in advance of consent beinggiven for the Live8 concert to take place in Hyde Park; [3935]
(2) what discussions she had with the organisers of the Live8 concert in Hyde Park on ensuring that the cost of clearing up after the concert will be met by the organisers. [3936]
Mr. Lammy:
The Royal Parks Agency discussed the concert with the local authority, Westminster city council; with the Friends of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens; with the local operational and safety planning group, which is chaired by Westminster city council and which includes representatives of the emergency and
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rescue services, and with the Princes Trust, whose Party in the Park was already booked to take place that weekend.
The event organisers will arrange for the concert site to be cleared during and after the concert. However, as part of Government-wide support for tackling the problems affecting Africa, the Royal Parks Agency will not be charging the organisers for clearing up Hyde Park after this genuinely one-off event. My Department expects to bear those costs arising from Live8 which the Royal Parks are unable to absorb within their existing budgets.
London Olympic Bid
Mr. Willis: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what resources from public funds she is making available to run the office of the 2012 Olympic Bid Committee. [4258]
Tessa Jowell:
Decisions regarding the running costs of the Bid company London 2012 Ltd. are made by the company itself and the Government have not made separate funding available for this. The Government have made up to £20 million of public funds available to
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London 2012: £10 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; and £10 million from the London Development Agency. In addition, London 2012 has raised in excess of £8 million in private finance.
Mr. Mark Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what the aggregate public expenditure to date has been on the London 2012 Olympic bid. [4703]
Tessa Jowell: Public funding for London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games consists of £20 million for the commercial company London 2012 and a further £10 million for bid-related supporting activities. To date, London 2012 has drawn down £17 million and £7.1 million of the bid support budget has been spent, giving a total spend of £24.1 million.
Lottery-funded Projects (Nottingham)
Mr. Allen: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will list the projects funded by the Lottery in Nottingham, North in the 2005–06 financial year. [3924]
Mr. Caborn: Awards made in Nottingham, North in this financial year to date (1 April 2005 to 10 June 2005) are shown in the following table:
There will have been awards made this financial year by Lottery Distributors that have yet to be recorded, due to a degree of lag in the reporting process.
The information is freely available from the Department's searchable Lottery award database at www.lottery.culture.gsi.gov.uk, which uses information supplied by the Lottery distributors.
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
Business Rates
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister for what reasons transitional relief for the 2005 business rates revaluation in England is not subsidised by central Government. [4311]
Mr. Woolas: The Government see no reason why a transitional scheme for business should be subsidised by the general taxpayer. The Local Government Act 2003 made transition a permanent feature of non-domestic rates revaluations and required such schemes to be self-financing. Transition schemes from 2005 will therefore be funded by other non-domestic ratepayers.
Capital Spending (Housing)
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what the total capital spending allocation was for housing between 1997 and 2004; and if he will break down the payments by scheme; [4188]
(2) what payments have been made by the Government as investment in affordable housing in England, broken down by scheme in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [4189]
Yvette Cooper: Government's capital investment in housing in England exceeded £4.7 billion in 2004–05, an increase of almost £2.9 billion over 1997–98 levels.
Table 1 shows how this total investment in England was split between the main housing programmes.
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(4) Two changes were made to funding arrangements from 2000–01 as part of wider initiatives to:
reduce ring fencing of funds to provide local authorities with more flexibility on use of resources in the light of local needs and priorities (the resources which had previously been allocated specifically for private sector renewal grants and Cash Incentive Scheme grants were include in the general funding provided for housing with only transitional payments occurring in later years); and
move to a basis of resource accounting for government accounts in 2001–02 (a separate funding stream—the Major Repairs Allowance—was established to cover the costs of maintaining council housing in its existing condition (as a proxy for depreciation).
(5) In each of 2002–03 and 2003–04 about £40 million was topsliced for an overall cross service performance reward pot supporting asset management.
(6) Funding to help existing council tenants purchase a home of their own thereby freeing up a home for a household in need.
(7) Some, but not all, of the investment within HATs will deliver housing outputs.
(8) In addition to this £48 million, £21 million from the Capital Modernisation Fund was spent in the Market Renewal pathfinder areas.
In addition, Government sponsor other capital programmes which support the housing agenda by levering in private sector investment on housing or supporting infrastructure development. For example, since 1998 we have allocated credits in Housing PFI totalling £259 million between 1998–99 to 2004–05 in schemes that have been signed.
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A significant proportion of the total expenditure between 1997–98 and 2004–05 supported provision of affordable housing—table 2 shows a detailed breakdown of the affordable housing programme.
This table represents the investment the Government have made via the Housing Corporation to registered social landlords for the provision and repair of affordable housing for both rent and low cost homeownership.
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