HC Deb 15 March 1983 vol 39 c101W
Mr. Bright

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he will take to reduce capital underspend on local authority non-housing services.

Mr. King

In order to encourage fuller use of resources, 50 per cent. of the capital receipts forecast to arise on non-housing services during the year was added to the basic public expenditure provision in determining the total available for prescribed expenditure allocations for those services for 1983–84. Authorities are free to apply the other 50 per cent. of such receipts to increase capital expenditure, and I shall be issuing additional allocations to certain authorities which wish to spend a higher proportion of their receipts locally during the year. In addition, I am telling authorities that during 1983–84 they may use up to 100 per cent. of all non-housing capital receipts which remain unapplied from 1982–83 and previous years.