Lord Empey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Empey on 2016-06-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether any requests have been received from the devolved administrations to raise their borrowing limits; and if so, what increases were requested, when such requests were made, and whether any have been agreed to.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Treasury Ministers are in regular contact with Devolved Administration Ministers on a variety of matters.

Each of the Devolved Administrations has a range of capital and resource borrowing powers set out in legislation.

In addition to these, the Stormont House Agreement provided flexibility to use £700m of capital borrowing to fund a voluntary exit scheme over a period of 4 years with £200m in 2015-16, £200m in 2016-17, £200m in 2017-18 and £100m in 2018-19 as well as up to an additional £350m borrowing for infrastructure projects with a profile over four years with £100m in 2015-16, £100m in 2016-17, £100m in 2017-18 and £50m in 2018-19.

The Fresh Start Agreement and Implementation Plan provided assurances that the NI Executive could access the full amount of additional borrowing provided by the Stormont House Agreement even if it is able to realise agreed efficiency savings from Voluntary Exit Scheme without switching the full amount of existing borrowing for that purpose.

The Government is working closely with the Northern Ireland Executive to implement the Fresh Start Agreement.

In response to a specific request from the Welsh Government, the Government has provided early access to the capital borrowing powers in the Wales Act 2014 in order to support the delivery of the M4 relief road.

Again, the Government is working closely with the Welsh Government on this matter.