Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to Written Answer by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist on 16 November (HL3703), how much expenditure was projected in the 2021 Spending Review for the maintenance of coal tips in England; and what was the Barnett consequential allocated to Wales corresponding to this expenditure.

The department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will confirm the Coal Authority’s funding for the 2021 Spending Review (SR21) period in due course.

However, as set out in the Statement of Funding Policy, the Barnett formula is applied to changes in UK Government departments’ funding, not to total spending on individual programmes. Barnett consequentials therefore just represent the changes in the Welsh Government’s block grant funding, rather than being the total funding provided.

As a result of changes in UK Government departments’ funding, the UK Government is providing an additional £2.5 billion per year on average over the SR21 period to the Welsh Government through the Barnett formula, on top their £15.9 billion annual baseline. As noted in response to a previous question on this matter (HL3703) the Welsh Government is therefore more than fairly funded to deal with all devolved responsibilities, including coal tips. It is however for the Welsh Government to allocate this funding as they see fit across their devolved responsibilities.