Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to (a) assess and (b) monitor the effectiveness of subsidies made by public authorities falling below the transparency thresholds proposed in the Subsidy Control Bill; and whether those subsidies will be required to be reported to his Department by public authorities.
Answered by Paul Scully
The new subsidy transparency rules will make the UK a world leader in subsidy transparency and will provide subsidy data for improving subsidy design across the UK.
Any financial support below £315,000 over three years does not require a public authority to check the subsidy against the principles, because it is exempt as Minimal Financial Assistance (MFA). This financial support does not need to be reported to the Government or uploaded to the transparency database. The Government does not intend to assess and monitor the effectiveness of financial support which is exempt from the subsidy control rules.
The subsidy transparency rules have been designed to balance the administrative burden of recording subsidies with the benefits of subsidy transparency for those subsidies most likely to distort competition. This is why the MFA threshold is set at £315,000 over three years.
Regardless of the transparency rules, public authorities have a responsibility to ensure that any public money they provide is spent appropriately. Nonetheless, the assessment of financial support which is exempt from the rules would reduce the effectiveness of the dataset generated by the subsidy control database. Any subsidy data analysis should focus on those subsidies subject to the rules of the regime.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will provide a breakdown of the main purposes of subsidies awarded by public bodies that were below the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) transparency threshold in each calendar year between 2015 and 2020.
Answered by Paul Scully
Information on subsidies which were below the EU State aid transparency threshold was not required to be declared on the EU State Aid Transparency Public Search tool.
The information is also not held centrally by the Government and could therefore only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the total (a) number and (b) value of subsidies awarded by public bodies that were below the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) transparency threshold was in each calendar year between 2015 and 2020.
Answered by Paul Scully
Information on subsidies which were below the EU State aid transparency threshold was not required to be declared on the EU State Aid Transparency Public Search tool.
The information is also not held centrally by the Government and could therefore only be obtained at disproportionate cost.