§ Sir Irvine PatnickTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what estimate he has made of the reduction in public expenditure from the measures taken over the last 15 years to restrict expenditure by local authorities; and if he will make a statement. [4907]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordSince 1990–91, when capping in its current form was introduced, it has been directly responsible for reducing the budgets of those authorities that challenged their caps by a total that has now reached over a third of a billion pounds a year compared with the budgets originally set. The great majority of authorities did not challenge their caps, but set budgets within the limits implied by the capping criteria; although no direct estimate can be made, it is clear that in these cases, too, capping has been generally successful in ensuring that many authorities have budgeted at a lower level than would otherwise have been the case.
§ Sir Irvine PatnickTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to prevent local authorities setting budgets prior to the announcement of standard spending assessments; and if he will make a statement. [4825]
§ Sir Paul BeresfordI have no powers to stop an authority setting its budget before the statement on the local authority finance settlement. However, it is highly unlikely that an authority would wish to set a budget before this date and I am not aware of any authority having done so in recent years.