Breakdown of European Investment Bank lending to UK and comparable Member States

1. On 26 October 2010, at a hearing on the financing of PFI projects during the credit crises and the Treasury response, the Public Accounts Committee requested a note, (Stephen Barclay Q57) on the relative share of EIB funding the UK receives relative to other European countries with a similar shareholding (but with particular reference to Spain and Italy).

2. Finance contracts signed by the EIB in the countries holding the five largest shares of EIB capital, expressed as a total amount and as a share of total EIB lending in the EU, are set out in table 1.

Table 1.

Source: European Investment Bank, Annual Reports and EIB website.

* statistics for 2010 include all finance contracts signed up to 10 November 2010, as published on the EIB website

3. The Committee should be aware that France, Germany, Italy and the UK all have the same capital holding of €37.6 billion. Spain has a capital holding of €22.6 billion.

4. The share of lending going to the UK should be considered in the context of:

- UK projects traditionally having access to and securing funding from capital markets;

- local authorities ability to obtain competitive financing from the Public Works Loan Board and

- Limited UK access to the EIB's convergence objective, given the relatively limited number of convergence regions in the UK

November 2010