§ Mr. Ronald Atkinsasked the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has, in deciding to set a proportion of 6.3 per cent. for public transport nationally, of the practice of each of the counties in allocating for this purpose the grant received; and if he will publish this information for each county in England.
§ Mr. William RodgersProjected local authority spending in 1978–79 on support 197W for public transport, including bus, rail and ferries, amounts in England to about 19 per cent., not 6.3 per cent.—which is the figure for North Yorkshire—of the total proposed expenditure that I accepted for transport supplementary grant (TSG) purposes based on counties' annual transport policies and programme submissions. Since TSG is a block grant—not specific to particular items of local authority transport expenditure—county councils are free to allocate it as they choose, and records of these allocations are not collected centrally.
Details of the accepted expenditure for each county and the amounts of TSG allocated are set out in the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bradley) on 16th December.—[Vol. 941, c. 572–4.]