European Structural and Investment Funds

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts
Tuesday 12th December 2017

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Henley Portrait Lord Henley
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My Lords, again I ask the noble Lord to listen to what I have to say. I gave a categorical guarantee about the financial settlement and structural funds that have been agreed as part of the 2014-20 funding. I do not know about the specific project to which the noble Lord referred, but if it is included, it will be guaranteed. We have also made a guarantee about a no-deal scenario that all projects that were signed up to before the Autumn Statement 2016 will be guaranteed by the Government after the United Kingdom leaves the EU.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Portrait Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
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My Lords, are we not talking about only £1.2 billion per annum in this Question? Surely we can go on paying that if we want to from the £20 billion per annum we will be saving by leaving the EU.

Lord Henley Portrait Lord Henley
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My Lords, the noble Lord thinks that a billion pounds is a small amount of money. I think someone did once say, “A billion here, a billion there, and we are soon talking real money”. We are talking about considerable funds—some £8.6 billion over that period, which is a considerable amount.