§ Mr. David HeathTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if the funding for implementation of the Pennington Report, announced on 19 August 1997, will count against local authority spending limits. [22948]
§ Mr. Raynsford[holding answer 16 January 1998]: In line with the announcement made on 19 August 1997 by my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health, £3.75 million of extra funding has been provided to English local authorities to contribute towards the additional costs of inspecting food premises more frequently. This will assist in implementing the Government's response to the Pennington report. As a rule, expenditure for which 377W provision is made within an authority's Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) is included in an authority's budget requirement for capping purposes. Authorities are able to increase their budgets by at least the increase in their SSA, except where it would take their budget more than 12.5 per cent. above SSA or where their budget is already more than 12.5 per cent. above SSA.