§ Mr. Moynihanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will tell local authorities what they can spend on housing and other services for 1986.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerI announced in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) on 12 November at column113–16 that gross provision for capital expenditure on housing in 1986–87 would be £3,250 million, an increase of £200 million on the provision for 1985–86. I have now decided that of that total, £2,532 million should be for the local authorities, £685 million for the Housing Corporation and £31 million for the new towns. Gross local authority authority provision has been increased from £2,324 million in 1985–86 to £2,532 million for housing and from £621 million to £668 million for the other services block.
I have decided not to change for 1986–87 the prescribed proportion of capital receipts from the sale of assets which local authorities may use for additional capital expenditure. But since receipts continue to grow, authorities in England will have power to spend substantially more on the strength of their new and accomulated receipts in 1986–87 than in 1985–86.
In order to bring expenditure into line with this increased provision account must be taken in setting allocations of the spending power from receipts and of the increasing use local authorities are making of other opportunities for capital expenditure. The totals available for capital expenditure allocations to local authorities on the housing and other services blocks for 1986–87 will therefore be £1,465 million and £294 million respectively.
I am consulting the local authority associations on the distribution of these allocations, and on the need to give greater priority to the renovation of the local authority housing stock.