§ Mr. David EvansTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement about the status of the Rate Support Grant Supplementary Report (England) (No. 4) 1983–84.
§ Mr. RidleyI laid the fourth supplementary report for 1983–84 before the House on 5 February (HC 252). It emerged, however, that a number of figures in appendix I to annex IV had been wrongly printed. I therefore withdrew the report on 15 February, and I have today laid before the House a new report.
I have taken the opportunity to incorporate a revised rateable value for block grant purposes for one rating authority, and as a result the national grant-related poundage (GRP) for spending at GRE has increased by 0.0004p. GRPs at GRE for all classes of authority have been adjusted accordingly and the abatement multipliers of four authorities have been slightly altered as a consequence. Otherwise all the determinations remain as they were in the report which was withdrawn.
The supplementary report requires the approval of the House of Commons. Subject to that, I plan to make the revisions to grant payments to reflect this report and two others approved by the House on Wednesday 17 February early in April.
Copies of the report and tables showing revised; grant entitlements are being sent to local authority associations and to each authority.