§ 19. Mr. Gourlayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total amount of interest paid by the Scottish local authorities on their capital debt in the financial years 1950, 1953, 1956, and 1959, respectively.
§ Mr. MaclayThe amounts are, for the year beginning May, 1950, £8.6 million; for 1953, £14.7 million; for 1956, £23.7 million. No figure is available for 1959, but the estimate for 1958 is £30.5 million.
§ Mr. GourlayIs the Minister aware that the total capital debt between 1950 and 1959 has increased by only two and a half times, and that the figures he has given indicate the increasing interest paid by local authorities, which is now about four times what it was? Will he therefore desist from exhorting Scottish authorities to ask people to pay economic rents for municipal houses when the additional money paid by the tenants will not go to the persons who build the houses but will line the pockets of the money-lenders?
§ Mr. MaclayThis again is a question of an old argument, but I might point out that interest rates form only a part of the local authority revenue expenditure, and that the level of Government grants has risen more than correspondingly with revenue expenditure as a whole.
§ Mr. GourlayIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the case of certain authorities almost 25 per cent. of the rate-borne expenditure is in respect of interest rates, and therefore, represents a considerable proportion of the rates collected?
§ Mr. MaclayI do not think that that supplementary question invalidates what I have just said.