§ Mrs. Anne CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out the calculations behind his Department's forecast of the amount to be made available for local authorities arising from the proposed partial release of receipts of council house sales and other capital assets.
§ Mr. BaldryAs a result of the temporary relaxation of the regulations on the use of capital receipts announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the autumn statement, it is estimated that local authorities in England will have some £1¾ billion of extra usable capital receipts. This estimate was based largely on authorities' own forecasts of their receipts in 1992–93. It was assumed that, had there been no relaxation in the rules, receipts would have continued at broadly the same rate. As a result of the relaxation, authorities will be able to use 100 per cent. of virtually all receipts obtained during the period 13 November 1992 to 31 December 1993. This implies extra114W usable receipts of about £1½ billion. It was also assumed that the relaxation would itself stimulate extra disposals, and hence extra receipts, which would not otherwise have arisen in that period. This accounts for the balance of the estimate.
§ Mrs. Anne CampbellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the revenue raised by local authorities(a) by the sale of capital assets other than council houses and (b) by the sale of council houses, in each financial year since 1979, including information on the current financial year.
§ Mr. BaldryThe information is as follows:
Local Authority sales of Fixed assets: England £ million Housing dwellings1 Housing land etc. Other services 1979–80 473 38 2 1980–81 656 96 2 1981–82 1,241 99 351 1982–83 1,769 135 425 1983–84 1,325 124 435 1984–85 1,129 147 520 1985–86 1,092 137 608 1986–87 1,274 142 656 1987–88 1,715 149 1,032 1988–89 2,772 245 1,791 1989–90 2,820 216 1,500 1990–91 2,026 142 756 31991–92 1,180 156 622 41992–93 1,385 120 460 1 Capital value of local authority dwellings sold, including large scale transfers of stock to housing associations and discount repayments. 2 Figures not available on a comparable basis. 3 Provisional. 4 Estimated. Source: Local authority returns.
§ Mr. Clifton-BrownTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the local authorities which are currently debt free.
§ Mr. Robin SquireReturns to the Department indicate that the following authorities were debt free at 31 March 1992:
Bedford Ryedale Bracknell St. Edmondsbury Chiltern Sevenoaks Christchurch South Bucks City of London Suffolk Dorset Swale Lincolnshire West Sussex Mid Sussex Other authorities may have become debt free as result of the commutation of grants for debt charges which took place on 1 October 1992. These are likely to include the following:
Broadland South Northamptonshire Bromley South Wight East Cambridgeshire Tandridge Hove Torbay Mid Bedfordshire Wansdyke North Shorpshire
Mr. EvansTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are his proposals for the appropriate level of aggregate local authority spending in 1993–94 and the level of central support for that spending.
115W
§ Mr. Redwood[pursuant to the reply, 12 November 1993, col. 962]: I am today placing in the Library a table of illustrative relevant notional amounts for each local authority.