To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on British Shipbuilders' external financing limit for 1991–92.

British Shipbuilders' external financing limit for 1991–92 was set at £5·8 million as recorded in the Government's expenditure plans 1991–92 to 1993–94 published in February 1991. I am now able to announce a reduced EFL for 1991–92 of £3·6 million which amounts to a net improvement of £9·4 million. This is principally due to the release of the provision of legal fees totalling £6 million following the out-of-court settlement of the Scott Lithgow dispute in March 1991 and the deferred receipt of asset sales at North East Shipbuilders Ltd. (NESL) which included £2·075 million from the sale of Pallion, the only remaining NESL yard.