Departmental Expenditure Limit

HC Deb 09 July 2002 vol 388 cc894-5W

Mr. Bercow

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much and what proportion of the departmental expenditure limit for 2002–03 will be accounted for by staff costs; what the figures were for 2001–02; and if he will make a statement. [61022]

Beverley Hughes

The information requested is provided in the following table.

	2001–02	2002–03
Annual departmental expenditure limit (DEL)(£million)	10,731	10,230
Staff costs (£ million)	1,477	1,688
Staff costs as proportion of annual DEL (Percentage)	13.8	16.5

The 2001–02 DEL includes £826 million from the DEL Reserve, voted in the Spring Supplementary Estimates, mainly to fund asylum expenditure. If this is discounted, the staff costs for 2001–02 constitute 16.1 per cent. of the DEL.