§ Mr. Clifton-BrownTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many English local authorities who were debt-free were(a) Conservative, (b) Liberal, (c) Labour and (d) under no overall control in the latest year for which figures are available. [76381]
§ Mr. Raynsford104 directly elected English local authorities have reported that they had debt-free status as at 1 April 2002. On 10 May 2002, 49 were 387W Conservative. 10 were Liberal Democrat, six were Labour, seven were Independent and 32 were under no overall control.
Source: Capital Estimates Return 2002–03.
For the purposes of this return, an authority is "debt-free" only if:
(a) at 31 March 2002, the authority's credit ceiling was nil or a negative amount and
(b) at 1 April 2002, the authority had no money outstanding by way of external borrowing other than short-term borrowing or hard to redeem debt, as defined in Regulation 154 of the Local Authorities (Capital Finance) Regulations 1997.