§ Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals his Department has to develop a service-based inflation deflator to be included with the public expenditure White Paper; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Chris PattenThe public expenditure White Paper already includes information on the Government's spending plans expressed in real terms, excluding the effect of general inflation as measured by the GDP deflator; we have no present plans to introduce in addition a deflator based on changes in education costs.
My right hon. Friend is considering the recent report of the Education, Science and Arts Committee on the Department's expenditure plans, which included among its recommendations and introduction of volume measures of past education expenditure to complement the existing cash and real terms figures. He will publish the Government's response to the report in due course.