§ Mr. Ernie Robertsasked the Secretary of State for he Environment for what reason he decided to cut back the Greater London Council's grant by the full amount of overspend; and what different criteria were applied in the case of those metropolitan counties where only 33 per cent. of overspend is to be clawed back.
§ Mr. KingMy right hon. Friend announced on 2 June—[Vol. 5, c. 777–86.]—that if the response of local authorities to the call for revised budgets is not satisfactory, the Government propose to ask Parliament to reduce the total of block grant by about £450 million. The effect on individual authorities that fail to meet their current expenditure targets would be similar in rate poundage terms for all authorities within a class spending at a similar level in relation to their grant-related expenditure assessment. For any metropolitan county spending at GRE but not qualifying for any holdback protection, holdback would be the equivalent of a 1.66 pence rate. because of the slightly different split of responsibilities between tiers in London, it would on the 467W same assumptions be 1.16 pence for the GLC. Any differences in cash terms are a consequence of the varying rateable resources of different authorities.