To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform with reference to his recent letter to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, how much of the £68 million taken from unspent funds in the Research Council was spent to meet expenditure on (a) the restructuring of British Energy, (b) meeting the shortfall in EU structural funds, (c) the collapse of MG Rover and (d) increased spend on the technology programme and space projects. (148732)

The transfer (from current and historical underspends in the science budget) was necessitated by and used to meet an overall shortfall in DTI non-science budgets. The shortfall arose because of unforeseen pressures on the non-science budget (including those mentioned) in the context of a very tight DTI settlement (excluding science) from Spending Review 2004.

The transfer was considered only once all other options in the non-science budgets had been exhausted. This included managing down pressures and making wide-ranging cuts in other areas.

The funding released by these measures, alongside the transfer of money from science, was used to fund the remaining non-science pressures. It is not possible to determine the division of the transfer of funds from science between the examples mentioned. This is not how budgets are allocated or managed.