§ Mr. Thorntonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give figures separately for each year from 1974–75 up to and including an estimate for 1980–81 for local government current expenditure in England, Wales and Scotland, separately, showing the Government's target expenditure as included in the rate support grant settlement for each year and the outturn of expenditure for the year adjusted for price changes so as to make a valid comparison between the outturn figure and the rate support grant settlement target figure; and if he will also show the percentage excess or shortfall in volume terms for such expenditure each year as revealed by these figures.
§ Mr. KingThe available figures are as follows:
available within my Department. So the cost of providing them for the parliamentary answer was only about £30. Comparable figures for years prior to 1978–79 are not so readily available and would have to be derived from a number of returns which were designed for the calculation of national aggregates. The costs of providing figures for earlier years would therefore be very much higher.