§ Mr. Radiceasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the level of local authority current spending on the maintained sector of advanced further education for each year since 1978–79 in constant 1983–84 prices, excluding adjustments made to take account of the loss of fee income from the reduction in tuition fees for home students in that year.
§ Sir Keith JosephThe following table shows local authority expenditure on advanced further education, net of all income, in each financial year since 1978–79, adjusted for the reduction in the home undergraduate tuition fee in 1982–83 and its freezing in 1983–84:
Financial year £ million 1983–84 real terms* 1978–79 572 1979–80 566 1980–81 556 1981–82 560 1982–83 563 †1983–84 553 ‡1984–85 525 * Real terms expenditure has been obtained by using the Gross Domestic Product (Market Prices) Deflator. † Provisional. ‡ Estimated. The net figures, however, give a misleading impression of the trend in expenditure since the rapid growth in student numbers over the period (some 30 per cent.) led to increasing fee income. The best indication of the movement of expenditure is given by spending gross of income. This was in each year as follows: 106W
Financial year £ million 1983–84 real terms 1978–79 744 1979–80 732 1980–81 749 1981–82 786 1982–83 802 *1983–84 808 †1984–85 778 * Provisional. † Estimated.