§ Mr. NellistTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his replies of 26 November 1990,Official Report, column 259 and 12 December 1990, Official Report, column 434, if he will publish the information for those local authorities for which information is missing from the material deposited in the Library.
§ Mr. KeyOne local authority has sent in information to my Department and another has revised its figures since the previous answer I gave to the hon. Member.
Authority Blaby Mid Suffolk Number of people who have made a payment in respect of a personal community charge by 30 September 1990 45,000 55,693 Number of people liable who have not made a payment in respect of a personal community charge by 30 September 1990 17,000 2,939 Proportion of charge payers making a payment (per cent.) 72.6 95.0
§ Sir Ian GilmourTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment by how much the estimated 1991–92 average community charge would be reduced if(a) education and (b) education, fire and police were financed through central Government funding, with no change in the grants paid by central Government to the local authorities.
§ Mr. Portillo[holding answer, 15 January 1991]: On 31 October 1990 the Secretary of State issued a consultation paper on revenue support grant for 1991–92 and related matters. The Secretary of State's proposals included net revenue expenditure to provide a standard level of service of £17,135.7 million for education, £2,352.9 million for police and £1,020.6 million for fire and civil defence services. If all authorities spent at the level of their standard spending assessment, he proposed that their income from community charges should be £12,972 million.
If central Government were to fund education spending in line with these proposals, with no change in the amounts on non-domestic rates, and revenue support grant paid to local authorities, there would be no need for a community charge as the extra government funding would exceed the proposed community charge income.