§ Mr. Nicholas BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has any changes to announce to his Department's cash limits.
§ Mr. RidleyThe cash limit for class X, vote 2 (Central Environmental Services, etc.) has been reduced by £0.15 million from £199.318 million to £199.168 million. The 129W cash limit for class X, vote 4 (Royal Palaces, Royal Parks, Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and National Heritage) has been reduced by £0.5 million from £106.697 million to £106.197 million. The cash limit for class X, vote 9 (Sale of shares in the water services public limited companies) has been reduced from £2 million to £1 million. These changes all reflect reduced forecast expenditure this financial year. The savings of £1.65 million have been surrendered to the reserve.
Receipts to the Housing Corporation's approved development programme are now forecast to exceed provision by some £30 million-£35 million. I have given my approval for the corporation to increase gross expenditure equal to the major part of the excess. The corporation's net cash limit (DOE/HC1) has, however, been reduced by £2.9 million from £638.33 million to £635.43 million. £2.39 million of the reduction will be used to offset increased expenditure of that amount on class IX, vote 1, resulting from higher claims by local authorities for main housing subsidy in the current year. The remaining £0.51 million has been surrendered to the reserve.