Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether a state aid limit operates on payments to businesses made after 31 December 2020; what the value of that limit is; and over what time period that limit is applied.

EU State aid limits, which vary depending on the basis on which aid is granted, no longer apply to subsidies granted from 1 January 2021 in the UK. The only exception is aid within scope of the Withdrawal Agreement, specifically Article 10 of the Northern Ireland Protocol and Article 138 in relation to aid for EU programmes and activities within the Multiannual Financial Framework. Instead, the principles and conditions in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) must be followed, for example, any subsidies must be appropriate, proportionate, and limited to what is necessary to achieve the economic or policy objective. The TCA does not apply to subsidies below 325,000 Special Drawing Rights, approximately £345,000, given to a single enterprise over three fiscal years.