§ Mr. Fryasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report a table, on a consistent definitional basis, showing, for each year since information was published on public capital construction work spending (a) planned spending by category and (b) outturn spending; and if he will make a statement explaining any differences between plan and outturn.
§ Mr. Peter ReesThe following table contains the information that can be provided readily. Comparable plans for years before 1982–83 cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate costs.
Outturn exceeds plans in 1982–83 and 1983–84 mainly because of increases in improvement grants and grants and 83W loans to housing associations. This resulted from measures taken in the 1982 Budget and November 1982 construction package to stimulate demand for the construction industry.
Capital expenditure on construction work £ million cash 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 outturn outturn outturn outturn plan outturn plan estimated outturn plan Direct public expenditure on new construction Housing—new dwellings and improvements 2,138 2,454 2,362 2,007 2,342 2,328 2,265 2,345 2,331 Other environmental services 572 720 888 828 798 929 931 943 966 Transport 900 1,113 1,266 1,368 1,578 1,661 1,628 1,547 1,698 Education and Science, Arts and Libraries 380 433 536 485 395 436 382 426 365 Health and personal social services 399 483 629 764 805 782 857 806 892 Other* 298 393 414 427 488 436 503 484 556 Total direct public expenditure on new construction 4,687 5,596 6,095 5,879 6,406 6,572 6,566 6,551 6,808 Grants and loans to housing associations and improvement grants 679 816 940 1,018 1,216 1,549 1,608 1,919 1,652 Expenditure on new construction identified within the planning total 5,366 6,412 7,035 6,897 7,623 8,121 8,124 8,470 8,460 Nationalised industries Electricity 186 227 284 316 ‡l,671 426 370 348 294 Gas 162 202 304 263 ║207 285 ║169 ║237 Railways 200 146 155 143 104 132 132 163 Coal 165 221 324 346 358 329 319 340 Water authorities 534 589 673 666 687 745 733 732 Other† 226 165 201 235 218 341 350 380 Total expenditure on construction by nationalised industries 1,473 1,550 1,941 1,969 1,671 2,000 2,202 2,051 2,146 GRAND TOTAL 6,839 7,962 8,976 8,866 9,294 10,121 10,376 10,521 10,606 * Defence; agriculture; industry, trade, energy and employment; law, order and protective services; office and general accommodation; some expenditure on new construction for military purposes is classified as current expenditure. † Certain capital expenditure by the British National Oil Corporation and Enterprise Oil which is classified in the accounts as new buildings and works has been excluded from this table since little of the work is produced by the construction industry. The "nationalised industry" figures for 1984–85 includes planned spending on construction by British Telecom. ‡ All figures are on Cmnd. 9143 definitions except the figures for planned nationalised industries expenditure in 1982–83. No breakdown of this expenditure was published in the 1982 public expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 8494) and the figure given here is based on the definition in Cmnd. 8494 and excludes water authorities. ║These figures have been revised to exclude BGC's expenditure on offshore platforms which is included in the corresponding totals in Table 4.5 of the 1984 Public Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9143).