§ Mr. MaddenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he intends to announce the standard spending assessment for the West Yorkshire fire authority; and what account, in reaching his decision, has been taken of special factors applying to fire visits in West Yorkshire explained to him by the delegation he met on 16 January.
§ Mr. KeyMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State laid the Revenue Support Grant Report (England) 1992–93 and associated reports before the House last Friday 24 January. Copies of the reports, together with a table showing the standard spending assessments—SSAs—and grant entitlement of each authority were sent to all authorities on the same day, and have been placed in the Library and Vote Office.
Before taking his decisions on the settlement, my right hon. Friend carefully considered all the representations and comments which had been made to him, including those made by members of a delegation from West Yorkshire fire authority when they came to see me on 16 January. Having considered all the representations and comments made to him, he decided to adopt his proposed methodology for the fire component of SSAs. The SSA for the West Yorkshire fire and civil defence authority for 1992–93 is £48.749 million, an increase of 8.2 per cent. on 1991–92, and as a result of changes in underlying data £12,000 greater than the provisional SSA proposed on 26 November.