§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, pursuant to paragraph 38 on page 111 of Command Paper No. 7439, he will indicate the estimates made by his Department for expenditure by local authorities on land acquisition under the Community Land Act which is to be 481W wholly financed by receipts from land disposals, giving separate figures for each of the years 1979–80 to 1982–83 inclusive.
§ Mr. Guy BarnettThe estimates assume the following receipts from disposals of land in England:
£m 1979–80 … … 18 1980–81 … … 40 1981–82 … … 66 1982–83 … … 103 This is available for site improvements as well as land acquisitions.
§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether it remains his policy, as stated in answer to the hon. Member for Melton on 31 January 1977, not to give information about land acquisition or disposal under the Community Land Act either by districts, or by sites, but only by counties; and whether he will now reconsider this.
§ Mr. Guy BarnettThe answer to the first part of the question is "Yes." However, discussions are being held with the local authority associations and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy about the publication of data from local authorities' land accounts. It is hoped to conclude these discussions shortly.
§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will list the three local authorities whose 1977–78 community land accounts showed a surplus; and whether he will give details for each of (a) income, (b) expenditure, (c) administrative costs as part of (b), (d) land acreage acquired and (e) land acreage resold in 1977–78.
§ Mr. Guy BarnettThe three authorities were Leicester city council, St. Albans city and district council and Rushmoor district council. As explained in reply to another question from the hon. Member today, the question of publishing details of individual local authority land accounts is currently under discussion.