European Structural Funding

Question: What funding has been made available generally in South Yorkshire as a result of European structural funding, and will she explain how that has impacted on the engineering industry there? It is so important to Barnsley to have access to jobs that are created as a result of incoming investment. It would be helpful if she could say a few words about how the funding has impacted positively on South Yorkshire.

Answer: Objective 1 funding between 2000 and 2006 provided around £767 million of European funds in South Yorkshire. Some of the issues with particular funding concerned promoting innovation, research and development, and economic infrastructure and regeneration projects for the development of the economy in South Yorkshire. All of us who have seen that funding working in action would say that over the past few years it has been immensely helpful in getting people back to work and in creating new jobs in a part of the country that had been badly damaged in 18 years of Conservative rule. We have benefited from that funding, and we will continue to do so under the new arrangements.

Secondary information