Written question asked by James Paice (Conservative) on Monday, 7 December 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 14 December 2009. It was answered by Dan Norris (Labour) on Monday, 14 December 2009 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Rural Development Programme

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much matched funding and other Treasury funding has been committed to the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE); and what the (a) consequences to date and (b) estimated consequences are of the change in the exchange rate of the euro to sterling on (i) amount of sterling to be funded from UK sources and (ii) the total amounts available for each Axis 1, 2 and 3 of the RDPE.

Answer: The total planned budget for the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) 2007-13, as announced on 29 March 2007, is £3.9 billion.A higher than planned euro value has contributed to an underspend of the European budget allocated to the programme to date. Under EU regulations, unspent European budget may be rolled forward to be spent in later years and therefore remains as part of the total programme budget. For the remainder of the programme we plan to take advantage of the higher sterling value of the EU budget to contribute to savings in the Exchequer funded element. This will contribute to achieving the saving of £92 million in 2012-13 announced in the pre-Budget report¹ to be delivered from efficiencies in Environmental Protection and RDPE. This saving can be achieved within the total of £3.9 billion planned for the programme."¹ http://prebudget.treasury.gov.uk/about_pbr.htm""(paragraph 6.45)"

Secondary information