§ 25. Mr. BRIDGEMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the fact that the amount received by the Road Board from 13th May, 1910, to 31st March, 1912, was£2,100,416, whilst the amount spent in Grants during the same period was only £254,258; and if it is the policy of the Board to accumulate large funds or to give prompt assistance to the local authorities?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe difference between the amount of £254,258 actually paid up to 31st March, 1912, under Road Board Grants, the payments under which depend on the rate of progress by highway authorities with assisted improvement works, and £1,051,648, the total amount of Grants indicated up to 31st March, 1912, is explained in paragraph 5 of the Second Annual Report of the Road Board, and in the same Report the policy of the Board in the administration of the Road Improvement Fund is fully set forth.
§ 26. Mr. BRIDGEMANasked if the rate able value of England and Wales exceeds £200,000,000; and, if so, how £1,000,000 annual saving on old age pensions and £426,000 annual Grants from the Road Board are equivalent to a rate of 2½d. in the £?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second, the assessable value of all extra-metropolitan areas in England and Wales, excluding county boroughs, to none of which have any Grants been made from the Road Improvement Fund, amounts to approximately £106,000,000; and if the annual average of the total Grants, namely, £426,000, made by the Road Board or awaiting further details for completion, is spread over the whole area represented by the above assessable value, the annual saving to local rates effected by the Road Improvement Fund amounts to 1d. in the £. 1793 With regard to the effect of the Old Age Pensions Acts, I am informed that no more exact figures as to the saving to local rates can be stated than those which my right hon. Friend gave in answer to the hon. Member's question on the 5th instant. It is estimated that those figures represent a saving to the rates of a little under l½d. in the £The combined effect therefore of the Road Improvement Fund and the Old Age Pensions Acts is, as already stated, about 2½d. in the £.
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANHow does the right hon. Gentleman calculate £426,000 as granted by the Road Board when he has just admitted that the amount was £254,000, and have the previous answers of the Chancellor of the Exchequer been mere conjectures and not based on figures?
§ Mr. MASTERMANNo. There have been no conjectures. I have given the figures. This money has been granted and will be paid over immediately the roads are completed.
§ Viscount HELMSLEYHow can there be any saving whatever in the rates, seeing that the rating authorities are not allowed to use this Grant for the purpose of saving the rates, as it has to be used for fresh expenditure which otherwise they would not incur?
§ Mr. MASTERMANAll the money is spent on necessary improvements to the roads of this country.
§ 30. Mr. BRIDGEMANasked what is the difference in the produce of motor and carriage licences between the years 1908–9 and 1911–12, and if there is any increase; and whether the whole increase is paid into the Road Improvement Fund?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe answer to the first part of the question is that there has been an increase of approximately £416,000. The answer to the second part is in the affirmative.
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANIs it not a fact that the counties are rather worse off now than they were before?