HC Deb 07 July 1988 vol 136 cc678-9W
Mr. Worthington

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will provide a detailed breakdown for the years 1982–83 to 1990–91 by nature of item and functional area of charge of the receipts to his programme classified as charges for the purposes of the public expenditure survey.

Mr. Wyn Roberts

Consistent with the figures published in "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1988–89 to 1990–91" Cm. 288, the information is as follows:

Committee on Welsh Affairs, "The Government's Public Expenditure Plans 1988–89 to 1990–91" (CM 288): first report Session 1987–88.

Mr. Peter Walker

The Government welcome the first report of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs on the Government's public expenditure plan 1988–89 to 1990–91 (CM 288). The Committee's recommendations and the Government's responses are as follows:—

Recommendation 1 We therefore recommend that the Welsh Office issue a commentary designed to complement and expand upon the text and figures in Volume II of the Public Expenditure White Paper, similar to the commentaries produced by the Scottish and Northern Ireland Offices.

Response The Government accepts this recommendation. A first Welsh Office commentary will be published in 1989. By this means additional information will be provided to give a more comprehensive picture of departmental objectives, performance and plans.

Recommendation 2 In its recent report on the White Paper, the Treasury and Civil Service Committee recommended that "individual Departments should publish their own forward-looking annual reports including the kind of financial information at present included in the departmental chapters of Volume II of PEWP, but considerably expanded". The Government agreed to consider the proposal sympathetically. We support this recommendation of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee and consider that a Welsh Office commentary of the type outlined in the previous paragraph could form the basis of a Welsh Office Annual Report, if and when departmental annual reports are introduced.

Response As the Committee will be aware, the Government has published its proposals for financial reporting to Parliament (CM 375) following the report from the Committee of Public Accounts (Eighth Report of 1986–87—HC 98) and the report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee on the1988 Public Expenditure White Paper (Second Report of 1987–88—HC 292). The views of the PAC and the TCSC are awaited.