§ Mr. Durantasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, further to his answer of 25 November, Official Report, c. 559–61, he will set out the basis on which the amount of any additional allocations to individual local authorities for expenditure on home improvement grants in 1983–84 will be calculated.
§ Mr. StanleyTo help housing authorities meet the increased level of demand for home improvement grants they were each given in their HIP allocation letter dated 25 November an indicative figure for expenditure on home improvements in 1983–84. In most cases, that figure amounted to each authority's HIP bid for home improvement grant expenditure in 1983–84 plus 10 per cent. Each authority is, of course, free to determine its own priorities for housing capital expenditure and the amount it wishes to spend on improvement grants, subject only to the duty to pay mandatory grants. The Government have stated, however, that additional allocations will ge given retrospectively in the light of outturn expenditure on improvement grants in 1983–84 to any authority whose expenditure both exceeds the indicative figure in its HIP allocation letter and whose total housing capital expenditure exceeds its HIP allocation. The amount of any additional allocation will be the smaller of the amount by which its outturn expenditure on grants exceeds its indicative figure, or the amount by which its total housing capital allocations exceeds its HIP allocation.