Regional Growth Fund

Monday 3rd February 2014 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

In July 2013, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister announced the 102 projects and programmes selected for support in round 4 of the regional growth fund (RGF).

RGF Round 4

In common with the new six-month timetable to agree final terms with Government which was placed on all RGF recipients for round 3, each of these round 4 projects and programmes was expected to sign its final agreement by 17 January 2014.

I can inform the House that 75 of those negotiations were completed before that date. In addition, since 17 January 2014, a further five round 4 negotiations have been completed.

For the remainder of the cases the due diligence process has shown issues that will require more time to resolve and I have therefore agreed short extensions to these cases so that they can be finalised very soon.

RGF Rounds 1 to 3

The rounds 1 and 2 process for finalising an agreement with Government is now complete and the round 3 process is 98% complete with one company still to agree final terms on its offer.

Operational projects and programmes

Taking all four rounds together, this means there are now 340 projects and programmes operational across England—an increase of 157 on this time last year.

We will publish our 2014 annual monitoring report later this year, which will detail the progress these schemes have made in job delivery and securing private sector investment.

Exceptional RGF

In my written ministerial statement of 11 February 2013, Official Report, column 33WS, I announced that Ministers would consider bids to the RGF on an exceptional basis—that is applications from organisations with credible plans for growth and job delivery where a decision is needed imminently in order to realise those plans.

We have finalised one exceptional RGF award with JC Bamford Excavators Ltd for £2.9 million, helping to create and safeguard almost 400 jobs in the west and east midlands. This award means the local area is benefiting from private sector job creation and investment in a way that would not have been possible in the time frames of the normal RGF bidding rounds.

Withdrawals

In my written ministerial statement of 21 May 2013, Official Report, column 61WS, I published a list of projects and programmes that had withdrawn from the RGF process. Below is a list of further withdrawals since that date. In most cases projects and programmes withdraw themselves during contractual negotiations, when it becomes clear to them that they do not wish to proceed with their plans as set out in their original applications. This can be due to a number of reasons, such as a changing market outlook or a reorganisation of their own future planned investment priorities. In all cases all the money awarded to the project and programme is recycled back into the fund so that other companies can benefit from the support of the RGF.