HL Deb 28 March 1983 vol 440 cc1343-4

2.55 p.m.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will seek from the GLC a complete list of all the projects and community activities that lie outside its statutory obligations upon which it is spending ratepayers' money.

Lord Skelmersdale

No, my Lords. Local authorities commonly incur expenditure on activities which go beyond their strict statutory obligations. If my noble friend has in mind activities which lie outside statutory powers, any expenditure on such activities would be a matter for the authority's auditors, and ultimately for the courts.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Would he agree that the GLC has a strange sense of priorities when it withholds the annual grant of £62,000 to the Boy Scouts and splashes out £500,000 on a community centre for homosexuals?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I can neither confirm nor deny that. All I know is what I have read in the press, and what I suspect my noble friend has read. For good or ill the Greater London Council exists, and it is within its rights to spend money in accordance with statutory powers on any local project which seems to it fit. Any dissatisfied voter has a remedy in his or her own hands at the ballot box.

Baroness Gaitskell

My Lords, may I ask the Minister this question. Surely he would agree that this is an extraordinarily insensitive and unsympathetic Question to be put at this time about young people, because they bear the main brunt of unemployment. Surely we should not be fiddling around with this kind of Question.

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, as has been pointed out many times from the Government Dispatch Box, the Government are not responsible for the Questions on the Order Paper.

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, would my noble friend be able to tell me how one obtains the information which has caused the GLC to give a grant of £5,000 to Bedside Manners Company Limited and £35,000 to the Karl Marx Centenary?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, I am not quite sure that I can advise my noble friend as to which specific person to go to, but I have no doubt there is within the Greater London Council a publicity officer of some sort who would doubtless be absolutely delighted to give my noble friend the information that she requires.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, would the noble Lord explain to his noble friend that the GLC, as distinct from this House, is an elected body and that the electorate of London has the determining matter in its hands rather than the electors of Trumpington?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is perfectly correct. This is why in my first supplementary answer I referred to the ballot box.

Lord Monson

My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that for many families on average incomes the reduction in direct taxation announced by the Chancellor in his Budget and the increased child allowances are almost totally wiped out by the increased rates bill that they face as a result of these extravagances?

Lord Skelmersdale

My Lords, statisticians will tell the noble Lord that comparisons are always dangerous.