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Written question asked by Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru) on Wednesday, 9 July 2025, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 23 July 2025. It was answered by Lord Livermore (Labour) on Monday, 21 July 2025 on behalf of the Treasury.

Public Expenditure

Question

To ask His Majesty's Government how much of the funds allocated to the devolved administrations they have been compelled by the Treasury to return on the basis of underspending as of 5 April.

Answer

Each devolved government is able to carry forward funding into future financial years. The Scottish and Welsh Governments each have a Reserve, and the Northern Ireland Executive has access to Budget Exchange. Details of these arrangements are outlined in the Statement of Funding Policy.

Outside of these arrangements, and for ringfenced non-Barnett funding, the devolved governments are required to return underspends to the UK Consolidated Fund at the end of the financial year, as with UK Government departments. This is the normal operation of the public spending framework, as set out in the Consolidated Budgeting Guidance.

Historical outturn data for the devolved governments up to the 2023-24 financial year is published in the most recent HMT Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) publication from July 2024. [1] This publication will be updated later this year with Provisional Outturn for 2024-25.


[1] You can access this publication via this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-expenditure-statistical-analyses-pesa.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL9303
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Devolution Public expenditure
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk