HC Deb 07 August 1975 vol 897 cc714-6
18. Mr. William Hamilton

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he now intends to produce a new White Paper on public expenditure over the years 1975–76 to 1980–81.

Mr. Dell

The next White Paper on public expenditure, covering the years to 1979–80, will be published when the Government have completed the 1975 public expenditure review.

Mr. Hamilton

Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that when it is published it will take into account the comments and recommendations of the Expenditure Committee, whose report was referred to in an earlier supplementary question? Will he also give an undertaking that if there are to be substantial cuts in public expenditure some of us who were previously opposed to the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) will incline to the view that those cuts should be in the defence sector rather than in the social service sector?

Mr. Dell

We shall of course consider the report of the Expenditure Committee. As I said earlier, we always consider the reports of that Committee. I note what my hon. Friend said about the forms of cuts in public expenditure of which he would most approve.

Mr. Lee

Defence expenditure is not the only obvious candidate for cuts in Government expenditure. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the over-ambitious road programme is one such candidate? Will he bear in mind that if there is any attempt to reduce local authority housing expenditure there will be the devil of a row?

Mr. Dell

All those points will be borne in mind.

Mr. Mike Thomas

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one factor affecting public expenditure that he could examine in the interim is the rapid rate at which he and his right hon. Friends are proposing to phase out nationalised industry subsidies? Is he aware that ordinary people will be facing the doubling of their electricity bills this winter? Can some reasonable process be gone through by which the phasing out is slowed down and the situation thereby ameliorated?

Mr. Dell

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made the position quite clear, and I have nothing to add to what he said.

Sir G. Howe

Will the Paymaster-General make it absolutely clear that if inflation is to be successfully defeated, the task must be undertaken by means of a policy sustained over some years, and that an inescapable part of that policy must be continued reductions in public expenditure? Will he give us an assurance that the Government will give, as quickly as possible, plain indications of what is intended, and that there will be no danger of these restraints being escaped by local authorities seeking to spend more by heaping larger burdens upon the ratepayers?

Mr. Dell

It is certainly true that dealing with inflation in this country will require concentrated Government activity over a period of years. It is equally true that public expenditure's share of United Kingdom resources has greatly increased over recent years, and that this has become an excessive burden on those resources. This is a matter which the Government are currently considering. The results of those considerations will be published in the ordinary way in the White Paper.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has made a number of statements on the situation of local authorities.