Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the £30 million grant to the Garden Bridge Trust has been spent to date; and whether any funding allocated to that project has been returned to his Department.

Spend on pre-construction activity on the Garden Bridge project was capped at £13.5m. The former Secretary of State for Transport agreed that a further £9m could be spent on cancellation liabilities should the project not go ahead. Following cancellation of the project, the Garden Bridge Trust has submitted a claim for around £5m of cancellation liabilities. The final spend figure will be known after the standstill period of 3 months (from 13 February) which allows for any final remaining claims to come forward. We do not expect any remaining claims to be substantial. Therefore we expect the total spend to be around £18.5m with £11.5m returned to the Department once the claim is settled.