Select committee: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Recommendation 2
First Report - Investment in Northern Ireland
Published 8 Nov 2022
Paragraph 17
Addressed to Northern Ireland Executive; Northern Ireland Office
Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Investment in Northern Ireland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We note the Government’s intention to ensure that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and funding from the Multiply scheme match by 2024–25 the level allocated under the European ‘Structural Funds’ (ESF and ERDF). Service providers need certainty, however, and therefore the Government must set out the amount of SPF and Multiply funding, and EU funding, to be allocated each year up to 2024–25 so that stakeholders understand whether there will be any shortfalls or gaps in funding annually up to that point.
From: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, First Report - Investment in Northern Ireland (HC 85), paragraph 17, 8 November 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 2 February 2023 (deadline 8 January 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's report on investment in Northern Ireland sets out funding already allocated and published, says several areas are for the Executive or local partners, and declines some specific requests.
- On Levelling Up, it says the first round gave 2.9% to Northern Ireland and Rounds 1 and 2 together £119.8m, which is "3.16% of the Fund".
- On New Deal funding, it "can confirm" that funding provided to Northern Ireland Executive Departments "will be ringfenced", and says the Secretary of State will make further decisions "in due course" on the remainder.
- On trade agreements, it says it "consider[s] it unnecessary" to provide separate explanatory memoranda on how agreements interact with the Protocol, and that impact assessments do not currently consider specific Protocol measures.
- On the university cap and City and Growth Deal day-to-day resourcing, it says these are matters for Executive Departments and local Deal partners respectively; on engagement with local stakeholders it "will explore how this can be best achieved".