Local Government Expenditure

HC Deb 18 May 1982 vol 24 cc62-3W

Mr. Dewar

asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report a table on local government finance in Wales showing for each of the financial years 1974–75 to 1982–83 the outturn or estimated figures for (a) gross expenditure, (b) charges and other income, (c) grant-borne expenditure, (d) rate-borne expenditure and (e) expenditure borne by domestic ratepayers, expressed both in £ and in £ per capita.

Mr. Wyn Roberts

The information is as follows:

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

Figures of the Development Board for Rural Wales, actual expenditure funded through the Welsh Office on a constant—1978–79—price basis are as follows. The figures have been calculated using the retail price index.

	£million
1978–79	6.4
1979–80	7.3
1980–81	4.3
1981–82	4–2

The board's resources—and hence expenditure—were augmented in 1978–79 and 1979–80 by transfers from other programmes and special construction packages.

Mr. Hooson

asked the Secretary of State for Wales what was the value at constant prices of European Community aid for the localities within the area of the Development Board for Rural Wales for each of the four years 1978–79 to 1981–82.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

Figures are not available on a financial year basis. Details of European Community commitment of identifiable grants and loans to the board's area—at constant 1978 prices—in the period January 1978 to March 1982 are as follows:

Identifiable Grants and Loans from the European Community*£ Million (Commitments)†
Year	European Regional Development Fund	European Investment Bank	European Social Fund	Total
1978	0.21	0.56	—	0.77
1979	0.01	0.87	0.01	0.89
1980	1.29	0.70	—	1.99
1981	0.67	—	0.01	0.68
1982‡	—	—	—	—
Total	2.18	2.13	0.02	4.33
In addition, the area will also have benefited from the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund—FEOGA—for which figures are not available below the all-Wales level as well as from schemes assisted under the European social fund which are funded on a national basis.

Notes:

^* Figures are based on movements in the index of retail prices (1978 = 100).

† Comparisons for aid between years, whether on an actual or constant price basis, should take account of the facts that aid is related to demand and that the figures are approvals of aid, actual payments of which may extend over some period of years.

‡ Relates to the period ending 31 March 1982.