§ Mr. Jacques ArnoldTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has for changes to his Department's cash limits or running costs limits for 1991–92.
§ Mr. HowardSubject to parliamentary approval of the necessary supplementary estimates, the following changes will be made: the cash limit for class VI, vote 1—programmes and central services—will be reduced by £8,730,000 from £2,438,307,000 to £2,429,577,000.
There are a number of changes to reallocate provision within the vote. They mainly reflect changes in demand for various programmes and are as follows: a £17,500,000 increase for the small firms loan guarantee scheme; a £13,000,000 increase for the technical and vocational education initiative; a £13,500,000 increase for youth training; a £5,500,000 increase for expenditure on the national records of achievement; an increase of £4,514,000 for working capital loans made to training and enterprise councils for youth training, employment training, the enterprise allowance scheme and employment action and offset by receipts on these loans; an increase of £4,500,000 on capital expenditure; decreased receipts of £2,200,000 from the small-firms loan guarantee scheme; an increase of £1,500,000 for the training credits for young people pilot scheme; and increase of £9,659,000 running costs partially met by transfers from other votes within the group and increased receipts from the national insurance fund; a £59,773,000 decrease in provision for employment training; a £16,321,000 decrease in provision for the local initiative fund; a decrease of £12,644,000 in the contribution from the Welsh Office, class XVI, vote 4, in respect of the cost of services in Wales; and a £5,000,000 decrease in provision for business and enterprise support. The decrease in the cash limit on this vote more than offsets an increase of £2,000,000 on class VI, vote 3.
The cash limit for class VI, vote 2—Employment Service—will be increased by a token £1,000 from £488,880,000 to £488,881,000. This is the net result of an increase of £24,630,000 in running costs, mainly in connection with the administration of unemployment benefit payments; an increase of £5,348,000 for capital expenditure, also mainly in connection with administering unemployment benefit payments; a net decrease of £1,797,000 in programme provision, which includes £200,000 provision for a pilot scheme to assist lone parents to return to work; increased receipts of £27,532,000 from the Department of Social Security—class XI, vote 4—and other minor changes, mainly in connection with the ES revenue generation scheme.
The cash limit for class VI, vote 3—Health and Safety Commission and Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service—will be increased by £339,000 from £178,806,000 383W to £179,145,000. This increase is offset by a reduction of the cash limit on class VI, vote 1. The increase is the net result of an increase of £2,000,000 from vote 1 for capital expenditure; increased receipts of £451,000 from the Department of Transport—class VII, vote 2—for the railways inspectorate work carried out by the Health and Safety Executive; and transfer of running costs of £1,150,000 from the Health and Safety Executive and £60,000 from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to the Department of Employment—vote 1.
The running costs limit for the Department of Employment—votes 1 and 2—will be increased by £34,289,000 from £1,102,424,000 to £1,136,713,000. The running costs limit for the Health and Safety Commission and Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service—vote 3—will be decreased by £1,210,000 from £153,023,000 to £151,813,000.
Those increases are either offset as described above or charged to the reserve and will not therefore add to the planned total of public expenditure.