HC Deb 18 July 1997 vol 298 cc342-3W
Mr. Malcolm Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what new plans he has to introduce cuts and savings in his Department as a result of the effect on his Department's budgets for 1997–98 and 1998–99 of the upward revisions to the GDP deflators in the Budget on 2 July; and if he will make a statement. [8292]

Mr. Straw

[holding answer 14 July 1997]: All Departments are reallocating spending within their Departmental ceilings as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Mr. Bruce

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, following the recent Budget, he will give his estimate of the total real level of his Department's budget, in 1995–96 prices, in(a) 1997–98 and (b) 1998–99; if he will estimate what such figures were for (1) 1997–98 and (2) 1998–99 following the November 1996 Budget on the basis of the estimates of the GDP deflator contained in that Budget; and if he will make a statement. [8291]

Mr. Straw

[holding answer 14 July 1997]: Following the recent Budget, my Department's spending plans within the Control Total in real terms using 1995–96 prices are (a) £6,517 million in 1997–98 and (b) £6,269 million in 1998–99.

The corresponding figures following the November 1996 Budget, based on the GDP deflator contained in that Budget, were (1) £6,484 million in 1997–98 and (2) £6,385 million in 1998–99.

In comparing these figures the following points should be noted. The Home Office Annual Report 1997 (Cm 3608), published in March this year, announced a cash increase of £110 million in Home Office spending plans for 1997–98 compared with those set out in the November 1996 Budget. That increase reflected the inclusion of new provision for firearms compensation and related costs. Since then, a change in the way that certain receipts are handled has resulted in a cash decrease, incorporated in the recent Budget, of around £8 million on previous Home Office spending plans for each of the years 1997–98 and 1998–99. Because of these changes, the real terms figures shown at (a) and (b) are based on different underlying cash totals to those at (1) and (2).