HC Deb 12 March 1931 vol 249 cc1397-8W
Sir K. WOOD

asked the Minister of Health, according to the latest available information based on the figures for the standard year, the amount per head of the estimated population in 1928 of the Exchequer grant payable annually during the first fixed grant period under the Local Government Act, 1929, to the borough council of Woolwich, and the sum by which the amount exceeds the losses on account of rates and grants attributable to the operation of the Act?

Mr. GREENWOOD

According to the latest available information based on the figures for the standard year (1928–29), the general Exchequer grant under the Local Government Act, 1929, payable annually during the first fixed grant period to the council of the Metropolitan borough of Woolwich, amounts to 7s. 5d. per head of the estimated population in 1928 of the borough. The share of the borough in the Exchequer grants payable annually during the first fixed grant period under the Act to the borough council and to the London County Council amounts to 13s. 8d. per head of the estimated population of the borough and exceeds the loss otherwise attributable to the operation of the Act, as calculated on the figures of the standard year, by £9,150 or 1s. 3d. per head of the estimated population of the borough. The calculations make allowance for the transfer under the Act of the functions of the guardians to the borough council and the county council respectively, and for the cessation of the grant to the borough council under the London (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1894, but do not, of course, allow for the rate adjustments as between "gaining" and "losing" boroughs provided for in Section 100 of the Act. The figures given in this answer are approximate, inasmuch as some of the factors required for the purposes of the calculations under the Act have not yet been finally determined.