Department for International Development: DEL

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development (Hilary Benn) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimate, the Department for International Development departmental expenditure limit (DEL) will be increased by £57,216,000 from £4,958,465,000 to £5,015,681,000; the administration budget will be increased by £30,000,012 from £235,000,000 to £265,012,000. The administration budget increase is for non-cash changes in accounting provisions; the cash budget for administration activities is unchanged.

Within the DEL change, the impact on resources and capital are as set out in the following table:

£000s
	New DEL
	Change	Voted	Non-voted	Total
Resource	57,216	4,352,691	665,000	5,017,691
of which
Administration budget^*	30,012	265,012	-	265,012
Near-cash in RDEL^*	27,216	4,262,319	681,204	4,943,523
Capital	-	20,000		20,000
Depreciation^**	-	(22,010)		(22,010)
Total	57,216	4,350,681	665,000	5,015,681
^* The total of “Administration budget” and “Near-cash in resource DEL” figures may well be greater than total resource DEL, due to the definitions overlapping.
^** Depreciation, which forms part of the resource DEL, is excluded from the total DEL, since capital DEL includes capital spending and to include depreciation of these assets would lead to double counting.

The net addition to the resource DEL is made up as follows.

Additions: draw down of £77,077,000 of resource provision from end-year flexibility entitlements set out in the public expenditure 2005-06 outturn White Paper, allocation of £343,000 from the Treasury Reserve for Band Aid VAT and £12,000 transferred from the Cabinet Office in respect of DfID’s use of the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office.

Reductions: transfer of £5,341,000 from the Africa conflict pool and £13,875,000 from departmental unallocated provision (DUP) to FCO for support to the African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS) and quick impact projects in Afghanistan, and £1 million from DUP to Home Office for migration projects.

Volume 689: debated on Tuesday 20 February 2007